m: 


m^ 


THE  LIBRARY 

OF 

THE  UNIVERSITY 

OF  CALIFORNIA 


GIFT  OF 

Bettie  W.  Thomson 


fJ^Ju^ 


]^^  /^r^ 


•^im 


t^'<^--  ^.^c-j^'' 


■<  i 


ADDRESSES 


m 


IJenry  LL^aV  ' 

Drummond 


Digitized  by  the  Internet  Archive 

in  2007  with  funding  from 

IVIicrosoft  Corporation 


http://www.archive.org/details/addressesOOdrumrich 


^K^_ ,  1; 


MENRY    ORUMMONO 


ADDRESSES 


HCNPY 
DRUMMOND 


PHILADELPHIA 
HENRY  ALTEHUS 


Copyrighted,  1891,  by 
HENRY    A  L  T  E  M  U  S  . 


ALTEMUS     BOOKBINDEKY, 
PHILADELPHIA. 


BIOGRAPHICAL   SKETCH    OF   PRO- 
FESSOR  DRUMMOND. 


The  author  of  these  remarkable  addresses 
was  born  in  Scotland  in  185 1,  and  studied  for 
the  University  of  Edinborough  in  private  schools, 
in  his  native  city  of  Stirling.  After  gradua- 
tion here  he  continued  his  studies  in  Tubin- 
gen, Germany.  He  early  gave  signs  of  special 
promise,  and  it  was  decided  that  he  should 
enter  on  the  career  of  the  ministry ;  and  after 
his  ordination  he  was  appointed  to  a  mis- 
sion station  at  Malta.  It  was  in  the  leisure 
of  this  rather  solitary  work  that  he  was  ena- 
bled to  find  time  to  turn  his  thoughts  more 
entirely  to  the  subject  he  has  since  treated 
in  lecture  and  book,  although  it  v^^as  not  until 
long  afterward  that  these  efforts  were  made 
public. 

•  iii 

[       262 


IV  BIOGRAPHICAL    SKETCH 

On  his  return  to  Scotland  he  was  appointed 
a  lecturer  in  science  at  the  Glasgow  Free  Church 
College ;  and  it  was  at  this  period  that  his  first 
book,  "  Natural  Law  in  the  Spiritual  World," 
made  its  tremendous  sensation,  running  through 
endless  editions  at  home  and  abroad  and  in  every 
language.  The  first  edition  of  this  book  bears 
the  imprint  of  1883,  and  led  to  his  promotion 
to  a  professorship  in  the  same  college. 

The  success  of  the  opening  address  in  the 
present  volume,  when  reprinted,  was  as  instan- 
taneous, and  even  wider,  than  that  of  his  first 
book. 

Professor  Drummond  never  seemed  to  have 
been  troubled  with  any  absorbing  ambition  to 
publish  his  work,  and  the  list  of  volumes  which 
bear  his  name  is  small ;  at  least  one  of  them 
being  the  result  of  finding  a  stenographer's  in- 
complete notes  printed  and  for  sale  in  a  book- 
store. 

Doubtless  part  of  the  secret  of  his  success 
is  his  simplicity  and  clearness  of  style,  and 
the  fortunate  choice  of  subjects  which,  at  the 
moment    of    publication,    were    absorbing    the 


OF    PROFESSOR   DRUMMOND.  V 

thinking  world.  He  has  something  to  say, 
and  knows  how  to  say  it,  and  does  so  without 
any  reference  to  the  number  of  pages  it  will 
make,  should  it  ever  be  put  in  type.  In  this 
way  he  can  take  up  even  a  commonplace  sub- 
ject and  discuss  it  with  an  original  style  and 
infuse  freshness  into  it. 

There  is  no  better  example  of  this  than  the 
first  two  addresses  in  this  book,  the  text  of 
which  is  the  oft-quoted  eulogy  of  St.  PauPs 
for  the  love  that  never  faileth  and  the 
promise  of  Christ  of  rest  for  the  heavy-laden. 
Many  a  preacher  would  hesitate  to  select  these 
well-known  sentences  for  his  sermon,  but  Pro- 
fessor Drummond  has  found  the  happy  art  of 
making  them  seem  like  new  truths ;  and  origi- 
nality, after  all,  is  only  the  art  of  saying  better 
what  has  been  said  before. 

Professor  Drummond  is  an  ordained  minis- 
ter in  the  Free  Church  of  Scotland,  and  is 
engaged  Sundays,  during  the  University  ses- 
sions at  Edinborough,  in  religious  work  among 
the  students,  where  his  meetings  have  been 
attended  often  by  as  many  as  five  or  six  hun- 


VI  BIOGRAPHICAL    SKETCH 

dred;  and  while  at  home  or  abroad,  his  work 
has  done  much  to  help  the  cause  of  Christian 
living  among  young  men,  the  University  Set- 
tlement School  being  the  outgrowth  of  his 
words  and  example.  During  the  week  he  is 
teaching  science  from  his  professor's  chair  at 
Glasgow,  which  is  a  peculiar  attachment  for  a 
divinity  school,  and  one  not  found  in  America ; 
but  scientific  study  is  earnestly  pursued  in  such 
schools  in  Scotland. 

In  the  former  work  he  has  had  as  great  suc- 
cess as  in  the  latter,  and  has  been  the  right- 
hand  man  of  the  evangelist,  Mr.  Moody,  in 
many  of  his  mass  meetings,  which  shows  the 
deep  interest  he  takes  in  spreading  evangelical 
truth. 

Professor  Drummond's  appearance  and  man- 
ner are  well  known  in  this  country ;  and,  indeed, 
it  was  at  Northfield  that  the  first  address  in  the 
present  volume  was  delivered.  A  great  scholar 
and  divine  has  given  the  following  analysis  of 
the  elements  of  his  success  :  — 

"He  has  a  certain  magnetic  quality,  both  as 
a  writer  and  a  speaker,  but  it  can  be  analyzed. 


OF    PROFESSOR    DRUMMOND.  Vll 

He  has  a  style,  —  not  a  style  to  move  *  the  lonely 
rapture  of  lonely  minds,'  but  one  which  arrests 
the  busy  crowd,  —  clear,  pleasant,  flowing  with 
faint  hues  of  poetry.  He  is  never  allusive,  supe- 
rior, strained ;  he  does  not  condescend ;  he  is 
always  himself,  —  a  courteous,  unaffected  gentle- 
man, with  a  sincere  respect  for  his  audience.  He 
is  an  adept  in  the  art  of  translating  scientific 
ideas  into  common  English,  and  can  impart  the 
touch  that  redeems  the  familiar  from  platitude. 
Then  he  has  a  message,  a  secret.  No  one  can 
hope  long  to  touch  men  by  mere  cleverness  or 
rhetorical  skill.  Can  he  guide  me?  comes  to  be 
the  question  at  last.  Those  who  find  the  right 
road  from  the  blows  they  receive  on  the  right 
hand  and  the  left  when  deviating  into  wrong 
roads  are  grateful  for  a  wisdom  which  comes 
more  easily ;  and  Mr.  Drummond  is  nothing,  if 
not  practical.  He  has  a  system  as  well  as  a 
message.  The  man  of  one  idea  is  not  so  pow- 
erful as  he  used  to  be.  The  age  dreads  nothing 
so  much  as  the  Bore,  but  it  does  not  always  dis- 
criminate. But  a  man  with  a  system,  provided 
he  is  not  continually  rattling  the  skeleton,  is  the 


Vlll  BIOGRAPHICAL    SKETCH. 

man  of  influence.  A  brilliant  preacher  of  the 
day  humorously  compares  his  sermons  to  little 
heaps  of  earth  flung  up  by  a  mole :  they  made 
a  track.  In  the  same  way,  Mr.  Drummond's 
ideas  have  a  continuity.  That  one-half  of  his 
scheme  of  thought  is  studiously  kept  out  of 
sight  does  not  lessen  the  interest  taken  in  it; 
and,  like  all  men  whose  ideas  are  coherent, 
he  gives  the  impression  of  being  at  peace  in 
thought." 


"Though  I  speak  with  the  tongues  of  men 
and  of  angels,  and  have  not  Love,  I  am  become 
as  sounding  brass,  or  a  tinkling  cymbal.  And 
though  I  have  the  gift  of  prophecy,  and  under- 
stand all  mysteries,  and  all  knowledge ;  and 
though  I  have  all  faith,  so  that  I  could  remove 
mountains,  and  have  not  Love,  I  am  nothing. 
And  though  I  bestow  all  my  goods  to  feed  the 
poor,  and  though  I  give  my  body  to  be  burned, 
and  have  not  Love,  it  profiteth  me  nothing. 

5 


Love  suffereth  long,  and  is  kind ; 

Love  envieth  not ; 

Love  vaunteth  not  itself,  is  not  puffed  up, 

Doth  not  behave  itself  unseemly, 

Seeketh  not  her  own, 

Is  not  easily  provoked, 

Thinketh  no  evil ; 
Rejoiceth  not  in  iniquity, 
but  rejoiceth  in  the  truth ; 
Beareth  all  things,  believeth  all  things, 
hopeth  all  things, 
endureth  all  things. 


Love  never  faileth ;  but  whether  there  be 
prophecies,  they  shall  fail;  whether  there  be 
tongues,  they  shall  cease;  whether  there  be 
knowledge,  it  shall  vanish  away.  For  we  know 
in  part,  and  we  prophesy  in  part.  But  when 
that  which  is  perfect  is  come,  then  that  which 
is  in  part  shall  be  done  away.  When  I  was  a 
child,  I  spake  as  a  child,  I  understood  as  a 
child,  I  thought  as  a  child :  but  when  I  became 
a  man,  I  put  away  childish  things.  For  now  we 
see  through  a  glass,  darkly ;  but  then  face  to 
face :  now  I  know  in  part ;  but  then  shall  I 
know  even  as  also  I  am  known.  And  now 
abideth  faith,  hope,  Love,  these  three ;  but  the 
greatest  of  these  is  Love."  —  i  Cor.  xiii. 


THE    GREATEST    THING 
IN  THE  WORLD. 


pVERY  one  has  asked  himself  the 
great  question  of  antiquity  as  of 
the  modern  world :  What  is  the  sum- 
mum  bommi  —  the  supreme  good  ?  You 
have  life  before  you.  Once  only  you 
can  live  it.  What  is  the  noblest  object 
of  desire,  the  supreme  gift  to  covet } 

We  have  been  accustomed  to  be  told 
that  the  greatest  thing  in  the  religious 
world  is  Faith.  That  great  word  has 
been  the  key-note  for  centuries  of  the 


12  THE    GREATEST   THING 

popular  religion;  and  we  have  easily 
learned  to  look  upon  it  as  the  greatest 
thing  in  the  world.  Well,  we  are 
wrong.  If  we  have  been  told  that,  we 
may  miss  the  mark.  I  have  taken  you, 
in  the  chapter  which  I  have  just  read, 
to  Christianity  at  his  source;  and  there 
we  have  seen,  "The  greatest  of  these 
is  love."  It  is  not  an  oversight.  Paul 
was  speaking  of  faith  just  a  moment 
before.  He  says,  **  If  I  have  all  faith, 
so  that  I  can  remove  mountains,  and 
have  not  love,  I  am  nothing."  So  far 
from  forgetting  he  deliberately  con- 
trasts them,  "  Now  abideth.  Faith, 
Hope,  Love,"  and  without  a  moment's 
hesitation  the  decision  falls,  "  The 
greatest  of  these  is  Love." 


IN   THE    WORLD.  1 3 

And  it  is  not  prejudice.  A  man  is 
apt  to  recommend  to  others  his  own 
strong  point.  Love  was  not  Paul's 
strong  point.  The  observing  student 
can  detect  a  beautiful  tenderness  grow- 
ing and  ripening  all  through  his  char- 
acter as  Paul  gets  old;  but  the  hand 
that  wrote,  "  The  greatest  of  these  is 
love,"  when  we  meet  it  first,  is  stained 
with  blood. 

Nor  is  this  letter  to  the  Corinthians 
peculiar  in  singling  out  love  as  the 
summunt  boniim.  The  masterpieces 
of  Christianity  are  agreed  about  it. 
Peter  says,  "  Above  all  things  have 
fervent  love  among  yourselves."  Above 
all  thijigs.  And  John  goes  farther, 
**God   is   love."      And   you   remember 


14  THE    GREATEST    THING 

the  profound  remark  which  Paul  makes 
elsewhere,  **  Love  is  the  fulfilling  of 
the  law."  Did  you  ever  think  what 
he  meant  by  that  ?  In  those  days  men 
were  working  the  passage  to  Heaven 
by  keeping  the  Ten  Commandments, 
and  the  hundred  and  ten  other  com- 
mandments which  they  had  manufac- 
tured out  of  them.  Christ  said,  I  will 
show  you  a  more  simple  way.  If  you 
do  one  thing,  you  will  do  these  hun- 
dred and  ten  things,  without  ever 
thinking  about  them.  If  you  love,  you 
will  unconsciously  fulfill  the  whole 
law.  And  you  can  readily  see  for 
yourselves  how  that  must  be  so.  Take 
any  of  the  commandments.  **Thou 
shalt  have  no  other  gods  before  Me." 


IN   THE   WORLD.  IS 

If  a  man  love  God,  you  will  not  re- 
quire to  tell  him  that.  Love  is  the 
fulfilling  of  that  law.  "Take  not  His 
name  in  vain.*'  Would  he  ever  dream 
of  taking  His  name  in  vain  if  he  loved 
him  ?  "  Remember  the  Sabbath  day 
to  keep  it  holy."  Would  he  not  be  too 
glad  to  have  one  day  in  seven  to  dedi- 
cate more  exclusively  to  the  object  of 
his  affection  ?  Love  would  fulfill  all 
these  laws  regarding  God.  And  so, 
if  he  loved  Man,  you  would  never 
think  of  telling  him  to  honor  his  father 
and  mother.  He  could  not  do  any- 
thing else.  It  would  be  preposterous 
^  J  tell  him  not  to  kill.  You  could  only 
insult  him  if  you  suggested  that  he 
should  not   steal  —  how  could  he  steal 


1 6  THE    GREATEST    THING 

from  those  he  loved  ?  It  would  be 
superfluous  to  beg  him  not  to  bear  false 
witness  against  his  neighbor.  If  he 
loved  him  it  would  be  the  last  thing  he 
would  do.  And  you  would  never 
dream  of  urging  him  not  to  covet  what 
his  neighbors  had.  He  would  rather 
they  possessed  it  than  himself.  In 
this  way  "  Love  is  the  fulfilling  of  the 
law."  It  is  the  rule  for  fulfilling  all 
rules,  the  new  commandment  for  keep- 
ing all  the  old  commandments,  Christ's 
one  secret  of  the  Christian  life. 

Now  Paul  has  learned  that;  and  in 
this  noble  eulogy  he  has  given  us  the 
most  wonderful  and  original  account 
extant  of  the  summutn  bonuin.  We 
may  divide  it  into  three  parts.     In  the 


IN    THE    WORLD.  1 7 

beginning  of  the  short  chapter,  we 
have  Love  contrasted ;  in  the  heart  of 
it,  we  have  Love  analyzed ;  toward  the 
end,  we  have  Love  defended  as  the 
supreme  gift. 


1 8  THE    GREATEST   THING 


THE   CONTRAST. 


JPAUL  begins  by  contrasting  Love 
with  other  things  that  men  in 
those  days  thought  much  of.  I  shall 
not  attempt  to  go  over  these  things  in 
detail.  Their  inferiority  is  already 
obvious. 

He  contrasts  it  with  eloquence.  And 
what  a  noble  gift  it  is,  the  power  of 
playing  upon  the  souls  and  wills  of 
men,  and  rousing  them  to  lofty  pur- 
poses and  holy  deeds.  Paul  says,  '*  If 
I  speak  with  the  tongues  of  men  and 
-of   angels,   and    have   not  love,    I   am 


IN   THE    WORLD.  1 9 

become  as  sounding  brass,  or  a  tink- 
ling cymbal."  And  we  all  know 
why.  We  have  all  felt  the  brazenness 
of  words  without  emotion,  the  hollow- 
ness,  the  unaccountable  unpersuasive- 
ness,  of  eloquence  behind  which  lies 
no  Love. 

He  contrasts  it  with  prophecy.  He 
contrasts  it  with  mysteries.  He  con- 
trasts it  with  faith.  He  contrasts  it 
with  charity.  Why  is  Love  greater 
than  faith  ?  Because  the  end  is  greater 
than  the  means.  And  why  is  it  greater 
than  charity  ?  Because  the  whole  is 
greater  than  the  part.  Love  is  greater 
than  faith,  because  the  end  is  greater 
than  the  means.  What  is  the  use  of 
having  faith  ?     It  is  to  connect  the  soul 


20  THE    GREATEST   THING 

with  God.  And  what  is  the  object 
of  connecting  man  with  God  ?  That 
he  may  become  like  God.  But  God 
is  Love.  Hence  Faith,  the  means,  is 
in  order  to  Love,  the  end.  Love, 
therefore,  obviously  is  greater  than 
faith.  It  is  greater  than  charity, 
again,  because  the  whole  is  greater 
than  a  part.  Charity  is  only  a  little 
bit  of  Love,  one  of  the  innumerable 
avenues  of  Love,  and  there  may  even 
be,  and  there  is,  a  great  deal  of 
charity  without  Love.  It  is  a  very 
easy  thing  to  toss  a  copper  to  a  beggar 
on  the  street ;  it  is  generally  an  easier 
thing  than  not  to  do  it.  Yet  Love  is 
just  as  often  in  the  withholding.  We 
purchase  relief   from   the   sympathetic 


IN   THE    WORLD.  21 

feelings  roused  by  the  spectacle  of 
misery,  at  the  copper's  cost.  It  is  too 
cheap  — too  cheap  for  us,  and  often  too 
dear  for  the  beggar.  If  we  really 
loved  him  we  would  either  do  more 
for  him,  or  less. 

Then  Paul  contrasts  it  with  sacrifice 
and  martyrdom.  And  I  beg  the  little 
band  of  would-be  missionaries  —  and  I 
have  the  honor  to  call  some  of  you  by 
this  name  for  the  first  time  —  to  remem- 
ber that  though  you  give  your  bodies 
to  be  burned,  and  have  not  Love,  it 
profits  nothing  —  nothing!  You  can 
take  nothing  greater  to  the  heathen 
world  than  the  impress  and  reflection 
of  the  Love  of  God  upon  your  own 
character.     That  is  the  universal  Ian- 


22  THE    GREATEST    THING 

guage.  It  will  take  you  years  to 
speak  in  Chinese.,  or  in  the  dialects  of 
India.  From  the  day  you  land,  that 
language  of  Love,  understood  by  all, 
will  be  pouring  forth  its  unconscious 
eloquence.  It  is  the  man  who  is  the 
missionary,  it  is  not  his  words.  His 
character  is  his  message.  In  the 
heart  of  Africa,  among  the  great 
Lakes,  I  have  come  across  black  men 
and  women  who  remembered  the  only 
white  man  they  ever  saw  before  — 
David  Livingstone;  and  as  you  cross 
his  footsteps  in  that  dark  continent, 
men's  faces  light  up  as  they  speak  of 
the  kind  doctor  who  passed  there 
years  ago.  They  could  not  under- 
stand him;  but  they  felt  the  love  that 


IN   THE   WORLD.  23 

beat  in  his  heart.  Take  into  your 
new  sphere  of  labor,  where  you  also 
mean  to  lay  down  your  life,  that  sim- 
ple charm,  and  your  lifework  must 
succeed.  You  can  take  nothing 
greater,  you  need  take  nothing  less. 
It  is  not  worth  while  going  if  you  take 
anything  less.  You  may  take  every 
accomplishment ;  you  may  be  braced 
for  every  sacrifice ;  but  if  you  give 
your  body  to  be  burned,  and  have  not 
Love,  it  will  profit  you  and  the  cause 
of  Christ  nothing. 


24  THE    GREATEST   THING 


THE   ANALYSIS. 


A  FTER  contrasting  Love  with  these 
things,  Paul,  in  three  verses, 
very  short,  gives  us  an  amazing  an- 
alysis of  what  this  supreme  thing  is. 
I  ask  you  to  look  at  it.  It  is  a  com- 
pound thing,  he  tells  us.  It  is  like 
light.  As  you  have  seen  a  man  of 
science  take  a  beam  of  light  and  pass 
it  through  a  crystal  prism,  as  you  have 
seen  it  come  out  on  .the  other  side  of 
the  prism  broken  up  into  its  component 
colors  —  red,  and  blue,  and  yellow, 
and    violet,    and    orange,    and    all    the 


IN    THE    WORLD.  2$ 

colors  of  the  rainbow  —  so  Paul  passes 
this  thing,  Love,  through  the  magnifi- 
cent prism  of  his  inspired  intellect,  and 
it  comes  out  on  the  other  side  broken 
up  into  its  elements.  And  in  these 
few  words  we  have  what  one  might 
call  the  Spectrum  of  Love,  the  analysis 
of  Love.  Will  you  observe  what  its 
elements  are  ?  Will  you  notice  that 
they  have  common  names;  that  they 
are  virtues  which  we  hear  about  every 
day;  that  they  are  things  which  can 
be  -practiced  by  every  man  in  every 
place  in  life ;  and  how,  by  a  multitude 
of  small  things  and  ordinary  virtues, 
the  supreme  thing,  the  siimmum  bonum^ 
is  made  up  ? 


26 


THE    GREATEST    THING 


The  Spectrum  of  Love  has  nine  in- 
gredients : 


Patience    .     . 

Kindness  . 
Generosity 
Humility  .     , 

Courtesy   .     . 

Unselfishness 
Good  Temper 
Guilelessness . 
Sincerity    .     . 


.  "Love  suffereth  long." 

.  "And  is  kind." 

.  "  Love  envieth  not." 

.  "  Love  vaunteth  not  itself, 

is  not  puffed  up." 
.  "  Doth  not  behave  itself 

unseemly." 
.  "  Seeketh  not  her  own." 
.  "  Is  not  easily  provoked." 
.  "Thinketh  no  evil." 
.  "  Rejoiceth  not  in  iniquity, 

but    rejoiceth    in     the 

truth." 


Patience  ;  kindness  ;  generosity  ; 
humility ;  courtesy  ;  unselfishness  ; 
good  temper;  guilelessness;  sincerity 
—  these  make  up  the  supreme  gift,  the 


IN   THE   WORLD.  2/ 

Stature  of  the  perfect  man.  You  will 
observe  that  all  are  in  relation  to  men, 
in  relation  to  life,  in  relation  to  the 
known  to-day  and  the  near  to-morrow, 
and  not  to  the  unknown  eternity.  We 
hear  much  of  love  to  God;  Christ 
spoke  much  of  love  to  man.  We 
make  a  great  deal  of  peace  with 
heaven ;  Christ  made  much  of  peace 
on  earth.  Religion  is  not  a  strange  or 
added  thing,  but  the  inspiration  of  the 
secular  life,  the  breathing  of  an  eternal 
spirit  through  this  temporal  world. 
The  supreme  thing,  in  short,  is  not  a 
thing  at  all,  but  the  giving  of  a  further 
finish  to  the  multitudinous  words  and 
acts  which  make  up  the  sum  of  every 
common  day. 


28  THE    GREATEST    THING 

There  is  [  no  time  to  do  more  than 
niake  a  passing  note  upon  each  of 
these  ingredients.  Love  is  Patience. 
This  is  the  normal  attitude  of  Love ; 
Love  passive,  Love  waiting  to  begin; 
not  in  a  hurry;  calm;  ready  to  do  its 
work  when  the  summons  comes,  but 
meantime  wearing  the  ornament  of  a 
meek  and  quiet  spirit.  Love  suffers 
long;  beareth  all  things;  believeth  all 
things;  hopeth  all  things.  For  Love 
understands,  and  therefore  waits. 

Kindness,  Love  active.  Have  you 
ever  noticed  how  much  of  Christ's  life 
was  spent  in  doing  kind  things  —  in 
merely  doing  kind  things }  Run  over  it 
with  that  in  view,  and  you  will  find  that 
He   spent  a  great   proportion   of    His 


IN   THE    WORLD.  29 

time  simply  in  making  people  happy, 
in  doing  good  turns  to  people.  There 
is  only  one  thing  greater  than  happi- 
ness in  the  world,  and  that  is  holiness ; 
and  it  is  not  in  our  keeping ;  but  what 
God  Jias  put  in  our  power  is  the  hap- 
piness of  those  about  us,  and  that  is 
largely  to  be  secured  by  our  being 
kind  to  them. 

**The  greatest  thing,"  says  some 
one,  ''a  man  can  do  for  his  Heavenly 
Father  is  to  be  kind  to  some  of  His 
other  children."  I  wonder  why  it  is 
that  we  are  not  all  kinder  than  we  are } 
How  much  the  world  needs  it.  How 
easily  it  is  done.  How  instantaneously 
it  acts.  How  infallibly  it  is  remem- 
bered.    How  superabundantly   it  pays 


30  THE    GREATEST    THING 

itself  back  —  for  there  is  no  debtor  in 
the  world  so  honorable,  so  superbly 
honorable,  as  Love.  "  Love  never 
faileth."  Love  is  success.  Love  is 
happiness,  Love  is  life.  **  Love  I 
say,"  with  Browning,  **is  energy  of 
Life." 

"  For  life,  with  all  it  yields  of  joy  or  woe 
And  hope  and  fear, 
Is  just  our  chance  o'  the  prize  of  learning 

love,  — 
How  love   might  be,   hath   been  indeed, 

and  is." 

Where  Love  is,  God  is.  He  that 
dwelleth  in  Love  dwelleth  in  God. 
God  is  Love.  Therefore  love.  Without 
distinction,  without  calculation,  without 
procrastination,  love.  Lavish  it  upon 
the  poor,  where  it  is  very  easy ;  espe- 


IN    THE    WORLD.  3I 

daily  upon  the  rich,  who  often  need  it 
most;  most  of  all  upon  our  equals, 
where  it  is  very  difficult,  and  for  whom 
perhaps  we  each  do  least  of  all. 
There  is  a  difference  between  trying 
to  please  and  giving  pleasure.  Give 
pleasure.  Lose  no  chance  of  giving 
pleasure.  For  that  is  the  ceaseless 
and  anonymous  triumph  of  a  truly 
loving  spirit.  "  I  shall  pass  through 
this  world  but  once.  Any  good  thing 
therefore  that  I  can  do,  or  any  kind- 
ness that  I  can  show  to  any  human 
being,  let  me  do  it  now.  Let  me  not 
defer  it  or  neglect  it,  for  I  shall  not 
pass  this  way  again." 

Generosity,      "  Love     envieth     not." 
This  is  love  in  competition  with  others. 


32  THE    GREATEST   THING 

Whenever  you  attempt  a  good  work 
you  will  find  other  men  doing  the  same 
kind  of  work,  and  probably  doing  it 
better.  Envy  them  not.  Envy  is  a 
feeling  of  ill-will  to  those  who  are  in 
the  same  line  as  ourselves,  a  spirit  of 
covetousness  and  detraction.  How  lit- 
tle Christian  work  even  is  a  protection 
against  un-Christian  feeling.  That 
most  despicable  of  all  the  unworthy 
moods  which  cloud  a  Christian's  soul 
assuredly  waits  for  us  on  the  threshold 
of  every  work,  unless  we  are  fortified 
with  this  grace  of  magnanimity.  Only 
one  thing  truly  need  the  Christian 
envy,  the  large,  rich,  generous  soul 
which  "  envieth  not." 

And   then,  after  having  learned  all 


IN   THE    WORLD.      *  33 

that,  you  have  to  learn  this  further 
thing,  Humility  —  to  put  a  seal  upon 
your  lips  and  forget  what  you  have 
done.  After  you  have  been  kind,  after 
Love  has  stolen  forth  into  the  world 
and  done  its  beautiful  work,  go  back 
into  the  shade  again  and  say  nothing 
about  it.  Love  hides  even  from  itself. 
Love  waives  even  self-satisfaction. 
"  Love  vaunteth  not  itself,  is  not  puffed 
up." 

The  fifth  ingredient  is  a  somewhat 
strange  one  to  find  in  this  summum 
bomim :  Courtesy.  This  is  Love  in 
society,  Love  in  relation  to  etiquette. 
**  Love  does  not  behave  itself  unseem- 
ly.'* Politeness  has  been  defined  as 
love  in  trifles.     Courtesy  is  said  to  be 


34  THE    GREATEST   THING 

love  in  little  things.  And  the  one 
secret  of  politeness  is  to  love.  Love 
can7tot  behave  itself  unseemly.  You 
can  put  the  most  untutored  persons 
into  the  highest  society,  and  if  they 
have  a  reservoir  of  Love  in  their  heart 
they  will  not  behave  themselves  un- 
seemly. They  simply  cannot  do  it. 
Carlisle  said  of  Robert  Burns  that 
there  was  no  truer  gentleman  in  Europe 
than  the  ploughman-poet.  It  was 
because  he  loved  everything  —  the 
mouse,  and  the  daisy,  and  all  the 
things,  great  and  small,  that  God  had 
made.  So  with  this  simple  passport 
he  could  mingle  with  any  society,  and 
enter  courts  and  palaces  from  his  little 
cottage  on  the  banks  of  the  Ayr.     You 


IN    THE    WORLD.  35 

know  the  meaning  of  the  word  "gen- 
tleman." It  means  a  gentle  man — a 
man  who  does  things  gently  with  love. 
And  that  is  the  whole  art  and  mystery 
of  it.  The  gentle  man  cannot  in  the 
nature  of  things  do  an  ungentle,  an 
ungentlemanly  thing.  The  ungentle 
soul,  the  inconsiderate,  unsympathetic 
nature,  cannot  do  anything  else. 
"  Love  doth  not  behave  itself  un- 
seemly." 

Uftselfishness.  "Love  seeketh  not 
her  own."  Observe :  Seeketh  not 
even  that  which  is  her  own.  In  Brit- 
ain the  Englishman  is  devoted,  and 
rightly,  to  his  rights.  But  there  come 
times  when  a  man  may  exercise  even 
the  higher  right  of  giving  up  his  rights. 


36  THE    GREATEST    THING 

Yet  Paul  does  not  summon  us  to  give 
up  our  rights.  Love  strikes  much 
deeper.  It  would  have  us  not  seek 
them  at  all,  ignore  them,  eliminate  the 
personal  element  altogether  from  our 
calculations.  It  is  not  hard  to  give  up 
our  rights.  They  are  often  eternal. 
The  difficult  thing  is  to  give  up  our- 
selves. The  more  difficult  thing  still 
is  not  to  seek  things  for  ourselves  at 
all.  After  we  have  sought  them, 
bought  them,  won  them,  deserved 
them,  we  have  taken  the  cream  off 
them  for  ourselves  already.  Little 
cross  then  to  give  them  up.  But  not 
to  seek  them,  to  look  every  man  not 
on  his  own  things,  but  on  the  things  of 
others  —  id  opus  est,      "  Seekest   thou 


IN   THE   WORLD.  37 

great  things  for  thyself,"  said  the 
prophet  ;  **  seek  them  not.''  Why  ? 
Because  there  is  no  greatness  in  things. 
Things  cannot  be  great.  The  only 
greatness  is  unselfish  love.  Even  self- 
denial  in  itself  is  nothing,  is  almost  a 
mistake.  Only  a  great  purpose  or  a 
mightier  love  can  justify  the  waste. 
It  is  more  difficult,  I  have  said,  not  to 
seek  our  own  at  all,  than,  having 
sought  it,  to  give  it  up.  I  must  take 
that  back.  It  is  only  true  of  a  partly 
selfish  heart.  Nothing  is  a  hardship 
to  Love,  and  nothing  is  hard.  I  be- 
lieve that  Christ's  "  yoke "  is  easy. 
Christ's  yoke  is  just  his  way  of  taking 
life.  And  I  believe  it  is  an  easier 
way  than  any  other.     I  believe  it  is  a 


38  THE   GREATEST   THING 

happier  way  than  any  other.  The 
most  obvious  lesson  in  Christ's  teach- 
ing is  that  there  is  no  happiness  in 
having  and  getting  anything,  but  only 
in  giving.  I  repeat,  there  is  no  happi- 
ness  in  having  or  in  getting,  but  only  in 
giving.  And  half  the  world  is  on  the 
wrong  scent  in  pursuit  of  happiness. 
They  think  it  consists  in  having  and 
getting,  and  in  being  served  by  others. 
It  consists  in  giving,  and  in  serving 
others.  He  that  would  be  great  among 
you,  said  Christ,  let  him  serve.  He 
that  would  be  happy,  let  him  remem- 
ber that  there  is  but  one  way  —  it  is 
more  blessed,  it  is  more  happy,  to  gWQ 
than  to  receive. 

The    next   ingredient   is   a   very   re- 


IN    THE    WORLD.  39 

markablc  one :  Good  tc7nper.  "  Love 
is  not  easily  provoked."  Nothing  could 
be  more  striking  than  to  find  this 
here.  We  are  inclined  to  look  upon 
bad  temper  as  a  very  harmless  weak- 
ness. We  speak  of  it  as  a  mere  in- 
firmity of  nature,  a  family  failing,  a 
matter  of  temperament,  not  a  thing  to 
take  into  very  serious  account  in  esti- 
mating a  man's  character.  And  yet 
here,  right  in  the  heart  of  this  analysis 
of  love,  it  finds  a  place ;  and  the  Bible 
again  and  again  returns  to  condemn  it 
as  one  of  the  most  destructive  elements 
in  human  nature. 

The  peculiarity  of  ill  temper  is  that 
it  is  the  vice  of  the  virtuous.  It 
is  often   the  one  blot  on  an  otherwise 


40  THE    GREATEST    THING 

noble  character.  You  know  men  who 
are  all  but  perfect,  and  women  who 
would  be  entirely  perfect,  but  for 
an  easily  ruffled,  quick-tempered,  or 
** touchy"  disposition.  This  compati- 
bility of  ill  temper  with  high  moral 
character  is  one  of  the  strangest  and 
saddest  problems  of  ethics.  The  truth 
is  there  are  two  great  classes  of  shis  — 
sins  of  the  Body,  and  sins  of  the  Dis- 
position. The  Prodigal  Son  may  be 
taken  as  a  type  of  the  first,  the  Elder 
Brother  of  the  second.  Now,  society 
has  no  doubt  whatever  as  to  which  of 
these  is  the  worse.  Its  brand  falls, 
without  a  challenge,  upon  the  Prodigal. 
But  are  we  right  .'^  We  have  no  bal- 
ance to  weigh  one  another's  sins,  and 


IN    THE    WORLD.  41 

coarser  and  finer  are  but  human  words ; 
but  faults  in  the  higher  nature  may  be 
less  venial  than  those  in  the  lower, 
and  to  the  eye  of  Him  who  is  Love,  a 
sin  against  Love  may  seem  a  hundred 
times  more  base.  No  form  of  vice, 
not  worldliness,  not  greed  of  gold,  not 
drunkenness  itself,  does  more  to  un- 
Christianize  society  than  evil  temper. 
For  embittering  life,  for  breaking  up 
communities,  for  destroying  the  most 
sacred  relationships,  for  devastating 
homes,  for  withering  up  men  and 
women,  for  taking  the  bloom  of  child- 
hood, in  short,  for  sheer  gratuitous 
misery-producing  power,  this  influence 
stands  alone.  Look  at  the  Elder 
Brother,    moral,    hard-working,  patient, 


42  THE    GREATEST   THING 

dutiful  —  let  him  get  all  credit  for  his 
virtues  —  look  at  this  man,  this  baby, 
sulking  outside  his  own  father's  door. 
"  He  was  angry,"  we  read,  "  and 
would  not  go  in."  Look  at  the  effect 
upon  the  father,  upon  the  servants, 
upon  the  happiness  of  the  guests. 
Judge  of  the  effect  upon  the  Prodigal 
—  and  how  many  prodigals  are  kept 
out  of  the  Kingdom  of  God  by  the  un- 
lovely character  of  those  who  profess 
to  be  inside.?  Analyze,  as  a  study  in 
Temper,  the  thunder-cloud  itself  as  it 
gathers  upon  the  Elder  Brother's  brow. 
What  is  it  made  of  ?  Jealousy,  anger, 
pride,  uncharity,  cruelty,  self-right- 
eousness, touchiness,  doggedness,  sul- 
lenness  —  these  are  the   ingredients  of 


IN   THE   WORLD.  43 

this  dark  and  loveless  soul.  In  vary- 
ing proportions,  also,  these  are  the  in- 
gredients of  all  ill  temper.  Judge  if 
such  sins  of  the  disposition  are  not 
worse  to  live  in,  and  for  others  to  live 
with,  than  sins  of  the  body.  Did 
Christ  indeed  not  answer  the  question 
Himself  when  He  said,  "  I  say  unto 
you,  that  the  publicans  and  the  harlots 
go  into  the  Kingdom  of  Heaven  before 
you."  There  is  really  no  place  in 
Heaven  for  a  disposition  like  this.  A 
man  with  such  a  mood  could  only 
make  Heaven  miserable  for  all  the 
people  in  it.  Except,  therefore,  such 
a  man  be  born  again,  he  cannot,  he 
simply  cannoty  enter  the  Kingdom  of 
Heaven.     For  it  is  perfectly  certain  — 


44  THE    GREATEST    THING 

and  you  will  not  misunderstand  me  — 
that  to  enter  Heaven  a  man  must  take 
it  with  him. 

You  will  see  then  why  Temper  is 
significant.  It  is  not  in  what  it  is 
alone,  but  in  what  it  reveals.  This 
is  why  I  take  the  liberty  now  of  speak- 
ing of  it  with  such  unusual  plainness. 
It  is^a  test  for  love,  a  symptom,  a  reve- 
lation of  an  unloving  nature  at  bottom. 
It  is  the  intermittent  fever  which  be- 
speaks unintermittent  disease  within ; 
the  occasional  bubble  escaping  to  the 
surface  which  betrays  some  rottenness 
underneath ;  a  sample  of  the  most  hid- 
den products  of  the  soul  dropped  in- 
voluntarily when  off  one's  guard ;  in  a 
word,  the  lightning  form  of  a  hundred 


IN   THE   WORLD.  45 

hideous  and  lan-Christian  sins.  For  a 
want  of  patience,  a  want  of  kindness, 
a  want  of  generosity,  a  want  of  cour- 
tesy, a  want  of  unselfishness,  are  all 
instantaneously  symbolized  in  one  flash 
of  Temper. 

Hence  it  is  not  enough  to  deal  with 
the  Temper.  We  must  go  to  the 
source,  and  change  the  inmost  nature, 
and  the  angry  humors  will  die  away 
of  themselves.  Souls  are  made  sweet 
not  by  taking  the  acid  fluids  out,  but 
by  putting  something  in  —  a  great 
Love,  a  new  Spirit,  the  Spirit  of 
Christ.  Christ,  the  Spirit  of  Christ, 
interpenetrating  ours,  sweetens,  puri- 
fies, transforms  all.  This  only  can 
eradicate  what  is  wrong,  work  a  chem- 


46  THE    GREATEST    THING 

ical  change,  renovate  and  regenerate, 
and  rehabilitate  the  inner  man.  Will- 
power does  not  change  men.  Time 
does  not  change  men.  Christ  does. 
Therefore  "  Let  that  mind  be  in  you 
which  was  also  in  Christ  Jesus." 
Some  of  us  have  not  much  time  to 
lose.  Remember,  once  more,  that 
this  is  a  matter  of  life  or  death.  I 
cannot  help  speaking  urgently,  for 
myself,  for  yourselves.  "Whoso  shall 
offend  one  of  these  little  ones,  which 
believe  in  me,  it  were  better  for  him 
that  a  millstone  were  hanged  about  his 
neck,  and  that  h»  were  drowned  in  the 
depth  of  the  sea."  That  is  to  say,  it 
is  the  deliberate  verdict  of  the  Lord 
Jesus  that  it  is  better  not  to  live  than 


Drummond's  Addresses    x 


IN    THE    WORLD.  47 

not  to  love.     //  is  better  not  to  live  than 
not  to  love, 

Guilelessness  and  Sincerity  may  be 
dismissed  almost  without  a  word. 
Guilelessness  is  the  grace  for  suspi- 
cious people.  And  the  possession  of 
it  is  the  great  secret  of  personal  influ- 
ence. You  will  find,  if  you  think  for  a 
moment,  that  the  people  who  influence 
you  are  people  who  believe  in  you. 
In  an  atmosphere  of  suspicion  men 
shrivel  up ;  but  in  that  atmosphere 
they  expand,  and  find  encouragement 
and  educative  fellowship.  It  is  a  won- 
derful thing  that  here  and  there  in  this 
hard,  uncharitable  world  there  should 
still  be  left  a  few  rare  souls  who  think 
no  evil.     This  is  the  great   unworldli- 


48  THE    GREATEST    THING 

ness.  Love  "thinketh  no  evil/'  im- 
putes no  motive,  sees  the  bright  side, 
puts  the  best  construction  on  every 
action.  What  a  delightful  state  of 
mind  to  live  in  !  What  a  stimulus  and 
benediction  even  to  meet  with  it  for 
a  day  !  To  be  trusted  is  to  be  saved. 
And  if  we  try  to  influence  or  elevate 
others,  we  shall  soon  see  that  success 
is  in  proportion  to  their  belief  of  our 
belief  in  them.  For  the  respect  of 
another  is  the  first  restoration  of  the 
self-respect  a  man  has  lost;  our  ideal 
of  what  he  is  becomes  to  him  the  hope 
and  pattern  of  what  he  may  become. 
*^  Love  rejoiceth  not  in  iniquity,  but 
rejoiceth  in  the  truth."  I  have  called 
this  Sincerity  from  the  words  rendered 


IN    THE    WORLD.  49 

in  the  Authorized  Version  by  "  re- 
joiceth  in  the  truth."  And,  certainly, 
were  this  the  real  translation,  nothing 
could  be  more  just.  For  he  who 
loves  will  love  Truth  not  less  than 
men.  He  will  rejoice  in  the  Truth  — 
rejoice  not  in  what  he  has  been  taught 
to  believe;  not  in  this  Church's  doc- 
trine or  in  that ;  not  in  this  ism  or  in 
that  ism;  but  "in  the  Tnitky  He 
will  accept  only  what  is  real ;  he  will 
strive  to  get  at  facts;  he  will  search 
for  Truth  with  a  humble  and  unbiassed 
mind,  and  cherish  whatever  he  finds 
at  any  sacrifice.  But  the  more  literal 
translation  of  the  Revised  Version 
calls  for  just  such  a  sacrifice  for 
truth's     sake    here.      For    what    Paul 


50  THE    GREATEST   THING 

really  meant  is,  as  we  there  read, 
*'  Rejoiceth  not  in  unrighteousness,  but 
rejoiceth  with  the  truth,"  a  quality 
which  probably  no  one  English  word 
—  and  certainly  not  Sincerity  —  ade- 
quately defines.  It  includes,  perhaps 
more  strictly,  the  self-restraint  which 
refuses  to  make  capital  out  of  others* 
faults;  the  charity  which  delights  not 
in  exposing  the  weakness  of  others, 
but  ''  covereth  all  things ;  "  the  sin- 
cerity of  purpose  which  endeavors  to 
see  things  as  they  are,  and  rejoices  to 
find  them  better  than  suspicion  feared 
or  calumny  denounced. 

So  much  for  the  analysis  of  Love. 
Now  the  business  of  our  lives  is  to 
have  these  thinofs  fitted  into  our  char- 


IN    THE    WORLD.  5 1 

acters.  That  is  the  supreme  work  to 
which  we  need  to  address  ourselves  in 
this  world,  to  learn  Love.  Is  life  not 
full  of  opportunities  for  learning  Love  ? 
Every  man  and  woman  every  day  has 
a  thousand  of  them.  The  world  is 
not  a  playground ;  it  is  a  schoolroom. 
Life  is  not  a  holiday,  but  an  educa- 
tion. And  the  one  eternal  lesson  for 
us  all  is  /ioz(j  better  we  can  love.  What 
makes  a  man  a  good  cricketer }  Prac- 
tice. What  makes  a  man  a  good 
artist,  a  good  sculptor,  a  good  musi- 
cian }  Practice.  What  makes  a  man 
a  good  linguist,  a  good  stenographer.'* 
Practice.  What  makes  a  man  a  good 
man }  Practice.  Nothing  else.  There 
is    nothing    capricious    about  religion. 


52  THE   GREATEST   THING 

We  do  not  get  the  soul  in  different 
ways,  under  different  laws,  from  those 
in  which  we  get  the  body  and  the 
mind.  If  a  man  does  not  exercise  his 
arm  he  develops  no  biceps  muscle; 
and  if  a  man  does  not  exercise  his 
soul,  he  requires  no  muscle  in  his  soul, 
no  strength  of  character,  no  vigor  of 
moral  fibre,  nor  beauty  of  spiritual 
growth.  Love  is  not  a  thing  of  enthu- 
siastic emotion.  It  is  a  rich,  strong, 
manly,  vigorous  expression  of  the 
whole  round  Christian  character — the 
Christlike  nature  in  its  fullest  develop- 
ment. And  the  constituents  of  this 
great  character  are  only  to  be  built  up 
by  ceaseless  practice. 

What  was  Christ  doing   in   the  car- 


IN    THE    WORLD.  53 

penter's  shop  ?  Practicing.  Though 
perfect,  we  read  that  He  learned  obe- 
dience, and  grew  in  wisdom  and  in 
favor  with  God.  Do  not  quarrel  there- 
fore with  your  lot  in  life.  Do  not  com- 
plain of  its  neverceasing  cares,  its 
petty  environment,  the  vexations  you 
have  to  stand,  the  small  and  sordid 
souls  you  have  to  live  and  work  with. 
Above  all,  do  not  resent  temptation ; 
do  not  be  perplexed  because  it  seems 
to  thicken  round  you  more  and  more, 
and  ceases  neither  for  effort  nor  for 
agony  nor  prayer.  That  is  your  prac- 
tice. That  is  the  practice  which  God 
appoints  you ;  and  it  is  having  its  work 
in  making  you  patient,  and  humble, 
and  generous,  and  unselfish,  and  kind, 


54  THE    GREATEST    THING 

and  courteous.  Do  not  grudge  the 
hand  that  is  moulding  the  still  too 
shapeless  image  within  you.  It  is 
growing  more  beautiful,  though  you 
see  it  not,  and  every  touch  of  tempta- 
tion may  add  to  its  perfection.  There- 
fore keep  in  the  midst  of  life.  Do  not 
isolate  yourself.  Be  among  men,  and 
among  things,  and  among  troubles, 
and  difficulties,  and  obstacles.  You 
remember  Goethe's  words :  Es  bildet 
ein  Talent  sick  in  der  Stille^  Dock  ein 
Charakter  m  dern  Strom  der  Welt. 
"  Talent  develops  itself  in  solitude ; 
character  in  the  stream  of  life."  Tal- 
ent develops  itself  in  solitude  —  the 
talent  of  prayer,  of  faith,  of  meditation, 
of  seeing  the  unseen ;  character  grows 


IN   THE    WORLD.  55 

in  the  stream  of  the  world's  life.  THat 
chiefly  is  where  men  are  to  learn  love. 
How  ?  Now,  how  ?  To  make  it 
easier,  I  have  named  a  few  of  the  ele- 
ments of  love.  But  these  are  only 
elements.  Love  itself  can  never  be 
defined.  Light  is  a  something  more 
than  the  sum  of  its  ingredients  —  a 
glowing,  dazzling,  tremulous  ether. 
And  love  is  something  more  than  all 
its  elements  —  a  palpitating,  quivering, 
sensitive,  living  thing.  By  synthesis 
of  all  the  colors,  men  can  make  white- 
ness, they  cannot  make  light.  By 
synthesis  of  all  the  virtues,  men  can 
make  virtue,  they  cannot  make  love. 
How  then  are  we  to  have  this  tran- 
scendent  living   whole    conveyed    into 


56  THE    GREATEST    THING 

our  souls  ?  We  brace  our  wills  to 
secure  it.  We  try  to  copy  those  who 
have  it.  We  lay  down  rules  about  it. 
We  watch.  We  pray.  But  these 
things  alone  will  not  bring  love  into 
our  nature.  Love  is  an  effect.  And 
only  as  we  fulfill  the  right  condition 
can  we  have  the  effect  produced. 
Shall  I  tell  you  what  the  cause  is  .? 

If  you  turn  to  the  Revised  Version 
of  the  First  Epistle  of  John  you  will 
find  these  words  :  "  We  love  because 
He  first  loved  us."  *'We  love,"  not 
"We  love  Him''  That  is  the  way 
the  old  version  has  it,  and  it  is  quite 
wrong.  "  We  love  —  because  He  first 
loved  us."  Look  at  that  word  "be- 
cause."    It  is  the  catise  of  which  I  have 


IN   THE   WORLD.  57 

spoken.  "  Becaiise  He  first  loved  us/* 
the  effect  follows  that  we  love,  we  love 
Him,  we  love  all  men.  We  cannot 
help  it.  Because  He  loved  us,  we 
love,  we  love  everybody.  Our  heart 
is  slowly  changed.  Contemplate  the 
love  of  Christ,  and  you  will  love. 
Stand  before  that  mirror,  reflect 
Christ's  character,  and  you  will  be 
changed  into  the  same  image  from 
tenderness  to  tenderness.  There  is  no 
other  way.  You  cannot  love  to  order. 
You  can  only  look  at  the  lovely  object, 
and  fall  in  love  with  it,  and  grow  into 
likeness  to  it.  And  so  look  at  this 
Perfect  Character,  this  Perfect  Life. 
Look  at  the  great  Sacrifice  as  He  laid 
down    Himself,   all    through    life,    and 


58  THE    GREATEST   THING 

upon  the  Cross  of  Calvary ;  and  you 
must  love  Him.  And  loving  Him, 
you  must  become  like  Him.  Love 
begets  love.  It  is  a  process  of  induc- 
tion. Put  a  piece  of  iron  in  the 
presence  of  an  electrified  body,  and 
that  piece  of  iron  for  a  time  becomes 
electrified.  It  is  changed  into  a  tem- 
porary magnet  in  the  mere  presence 
of  a  permanent  magnet,  and  as  long 
as  you  leave  the  two  side  by  side,  they 
are  both  magnets  alike.  Remain  side 
by  side  with  Him  who  loved  us,  and 
gave  Himself  for  us,  and  you  too  will 
become  a  permanent  magnet,  a  per- 
manently attractive  force ;  and  like 
Him  you  will  draw  all  men  unto  you, 
like   Him  you  will   be  drawn  unto  all 


IN   THE    WORLD.  59 

men.  That  is  the  inevitable  effect  of 
Love.  Any  man  who  fulfills  that 
cause  must  have  that  effect  produced 
in  him.  Try  to  give  up  the  idea  that 
religion  comes  to  us  by  chance,  or  by 
mystery,  or  by  caprice.  It  comes  to 
us  by  natural  law,  or  by  supernatural 
law,  for  all  law  is  Divine.  Edward 
Irving  went  to  see  a  dying  boy  once, 
and  when  he  entered  the  room  he  just 
put  his  hand  on  the  sufferer's  head,  and 
said,  "  My  boy,  God  loves  you,"  and 
went  away.  And  the  boy  started  from 
his  bed,  and  called  out  to  the  people 
in  the  house,  "  God  loves  me !  God 
loves  me  !  "  It  changed  that  boy.  The 
sense  that  God  loved  him  overpowered 
him,  melted  him  down,  and  began  the 


60  THE    GREATEST    THING 

creating  of  a  new  heart  in  him.  And 
that  is  how  the  love  of  God  melts  down 
the  unlovely  heart  in  man,  and  begets 
in  him  the  new  creature,  who  is  patient 
and  humble  and  gentle  and  unselfish. 
And  there  is  no  other  way  to  get  it. 
There  is  no  mystery  about  it.  We 
love  others,  we  love  everybody,  we 
love  our  enemies,  because  He  first 
loved  us. 


IN   THE    WORLD.  6l 


THE   DEFENCt. 


KTOW  I  have  a  closing  sentence  or 
'*•  ^  two  to  add  about  Paul's  reason 
for  singling  out  love  as  the  supreme 
possession.  It  is  a  very  remarkable 
reason.  In  a  single  word  it  is  this :  it 
lasts,  "  Love,"  urges  Paul,  "  never 
faileth."  Then  he  begins  again  one 
of  his  marvelous  lists  of  the  great 
things  of  the  day,  and  exposes  them 
one  by  one.  He  runs  over  the  things 
that  men  thought  were  going  to  last, 
and  shows  that  they  are  all  fleeting, 
temporary,  passing  away. 


62  THE    GREATEST    THING 

"  Whether  there  be  prophecies,  they 
shall  fail."  It  was  the  mother's  am- 
bition for  her  boy  in  those  days  that 
he  should  become  a  prophet.  For  hun- 
dreds of  years  God  had  never  spoken 
by  means  of  any  prophet,  and  at  that 
time  the  prophet  was  greater  than 
the  King.  Men  waited  wistfully  for 
another  messenger  to  come,  and  hung 
upon  his  lips  when  he  appeared  as 
upon  the  very  voice  of  God.  Paul 
says,  "  Whether  there  be  prophecies, 
they  shall  fail."  This  book  is  full  of 
prophecies.  One  by  one  they  have 
'*  failed  ;  "  that  is,  having  been  fulfilled 
theii  work  is  finished;  they  have 
nothing  more  to  do  now  in  the  world 
except  to  feed  a  devout  man's  faith. 


IN    THE    WORLD.  6j 

Then  Paul  talks  about  tongues^ 
That  v/as  another  thing  that  was  grcatlj 
coveted.  "Whether  there  be  tongues^ 
they  shall  cease."  As  wc  all  know, 
many,  many  centuries  have  passed 
since  tongues  have  been  known  in  this 
world.  They  have  ceased.  Take  it 
in  any  sense  you  like.  Take  it,  for 
illustration  merely,  as  languages  in 
general  —  a  sense  which  was  not  in 
Paul's  mind  at  all,  and  which  though 
it  cannot  give  us  the  specific  lesson 
will  point  the  general  truth.  Consider 
the  words  in  which  these  chapters  were 
written  —  Greek.  It  has  gone.  Take 
the  Latin  —  the  other  great  tongue 
of  those  days.  It  ceased  long  agoi 
Look   at   the    Indian   language.     It  is 


64  THE    GREATEST    THING 

ceasing.  The  language  of  Wales,  of 
Ireland,  of  the  Scottish  Highlands  is 
dying  before  our  eyes.  The  most 
popular  book  in  the  English  tongue  at 
the  present  time,  except  the  Bible,  is 
one  of  Dickens's  works,  his  Pickwick 
Papers,  It  is  largely  written  in  the 
language  of  London  street-life ;  and 
experts  assure  us  that  in  fifty  years  it 
will  be  unintelligible  to  the  average 
English  reader. 

Then  Paul  goes  farther,  and  with 
even  greater  boldness  adds,  "Whether 
there  be  knowledge,  it  shall  vanish 
away."  The  wisdom  of  the  ancients, 
where  is  it }  It  is  wholly  gone.  A 
schoolboy  to-day  knows  more  than  Sir 
Isaac    Newton    knew.     His  knowledo^e 


IN    THE    WORLD.  6$ 

has  vanished  away.  You  put  yester- 
day's newspaper  in  the  fire.  Its 
knowledge  has  vanished  away.  You 
buy  the  old  editions  of  the  great  ency- 
clopaedias for  a  few  pence.  Their 
knowledge  has  vanished  away.  Look 
how  the  coach  has  been  superseded  by 
the  use  of  steam.  Look  how  elec- 
tricity has  superseded  that,  and  swept 
a  hundred  almost  new  inventions  into 
oblivion.  One  of  the  greatest  living 
authorities,  Sir  William  Thompson, 
said  the  other  day,  ''The  steam-engine 
is  passing  away."  "Whether  there 
be  knowledge,  it  shall  vanish  away." 
At  every  workshop  you  will  see,  in 
the  back  yard,  a  heap  of  old  iron,  a 
few  wheels,  a  few  levers,  a  few  cranks, 


66  THE    GREATEST    THING 

broken  and  eaten  with  rust.  Twenty 
years  ago  that  was  the  pride  of  the 
city.  Men  flocked  in  from  the  country 
to  see  the  great  invention;  now  it  is 
superseded,  its  day  is  done.  And  all 
the  boasted  science  and  philosophy  of 
this  day  will  soon  be  old.  But  yester- 
day, in  the  University  of  Edinburgh, 
the  greatest  figure  in  the  faculty  was 
Sir  James  Simpson,  the  discoverer  of 
chloroform.  The  other  day  his  suc- 
cessor and  nephew,  Professor  Simp- 
son, was  asked  by  the  librarian  of  the 
University  to  go  to  the  library  and 
pick  out  the  books  on  his  subject  that 
were  no  longer  needed.  And  his  re- 
ply to  the  librarian  was  this :  *'  Take- 
every  text-book  that  is  more  than  ten 


IN   THE   WORLD.  67 

years  old,  and  put  it  down  in  the  cel- 
lar." Sir  James  Simpson  was  a  great 
authority  only  a  few  years  ago :  men 
came  from  all  parts  of  the  earth  to 
consult  him ;  and  almost  the  whole 
teaching  of  that  time  is  consigned  by 
the  science  of  to-day  to  oblivion.  And 
in  every  branch  of  science  it  is  the 
same.  "  Now  we  know  in  part.  We 
see  through  a  glass  darkly." 

Can  you  tell  me  anything  that  is 
going  to  last  ?  Many  things  Paul  did 
not  condescend  to  name.  He  did  not 
mention  money,  fortune,  fame ;  but  he 
picked  out  the  great  things  of  his  time, 
the  things  the  best  men  thought  had 
something  in  them,  and  brushed  them 
peremptorily     aside.        Paul     had     no 


68  THE    GREATEST    THING 

charge  against  these  things  in  them- 
selves. All  he  said  about  them  was 
that  they  would  not  last.  They  were 
great  things,  but  not  supreme  things. 
There  were  things  beyond  them. 
What  we  are  stretches  past  what  we 
do,  beyond  what  we  possess.  Many 
things  that  men  denounce  as  sins  are 
not  sins ;  but  they  are  temporary. 
And  that  is  a  favorite  argument  of 
the  New  Testament.  John  says  of  the 
world,  not  that  it  is  wrong,  but  simply 
that  it  "  passeth  away."  There  is  a 
great  deal  in  the  world  that  is  delight- 
ful and  beautiful ;  there  is  a  great  deal 
in  it  that  is  great  and  engrossing;  but 
it  will  not  last.  All  that  is  in  the 
world,  the  lust  of  the  eye,  the  lust  of 


IN    THE    WORLD.  69 

the  flesh,  and  the  pride  of  life,  are  but 
for  a  little  while.  Love  not  the  world 
therefore.  Nothing  that  it  contains 
is  worth  the  life  and  consecration  of 
an  immortal  soul.  The  immortal  soul 
must  give  itself  to  something  that  is 
immortal.  And  the  only  immortal 
things  are  these  :  *'  Now  abideth  faith, 
hope,  love,  but  the  greatest  of  these  is 
love." 

Some  think  the  time  may  come  when 
two  of  these  three  things  will  also  pass 
away  —  faith  into  sight,  hope  into  fru- 
ition. Paul  does  not  say  so.  We 
know  but  little  now  about  the  condi- 
tions of  the  life  that  is  to  come.  But 
what  is  certain  is  that  Love  must  last. 
God,  the  Eternal  God,  is  Love.     Covet 


70  THE    GREATEST    THING 

therefore  that  everlasting  gift,  that  one 
thing  which  it  is  certain  is  going  to 
stand,  that  one  coinage  which  w411  be 
current  in  the  Universe  when  all  the 
other  coinages  of  all  the  nations  of  the 
world  shall  be  useless  and  unhonored. 
You  will  give  yourselves  to  many 
things,  give  yourself  first  to  Love. 
Hold  things  in  their  proportion.  Hold 
ihings  in  tJieir  proportion.  Let  at  least 
the  first  great  object  of  our  lives  be 
to  achieve  the  character  defended  in 
these  words,  the  character  —  and  it  is 
the  character  of  Christ  —  which  is  built 
round  Love. 

I  have  said  this  thing  is  eternal. 
Did  you  ever  notice  how  continually 
John    associates    love    and    faith   with 


IN   THE   WORLD.  /I 

eternal  life  ?  I  was  not  told  when  I 
was  a  boy  that  ''  God  so  loved  the 
world  that  He  gave  His  only-begotten 
.  Son,  that  whosoever  believeth  in  Him 
should  have  everlasting  life."  What 
I  was  told,  I  remember,  was,  that  God 
so  loved  the  world  that,  if  I  trusted  in 
Him,  I  was  to  have  a  thing  called 
peace,  or  I  was  to  have  rest,  or  I  was 
to  have  joy,  or  I  was  to  have  safety. 
But  I  had  to  find  out  for  myself  that 
whosoever  trusteth  in  Him  —  that  is, 
v/hosoever  loveth  Him,  for  trust  is  only 
the  avenue  to  Love  —  hath  everlasting 
life.  The  Gospel  offers  a  man  life. 
Never  offer  men  a  thimbleful  of  Gos- 
pel. Do  not  offer  them  merely  joy, 
or    merely    peace,    or   merely    rest,    or 


T2  THE    GREATEST   THING 

merely  safety;  tell  them  how  Christ 
came  to  give  men  a  more  abundant 
life  than  they  have,  a  life  abundant  in 
love,  and  therefore  abundant  in  salva- 
tion for  themselves,  and  large  in  enter- 
prise for  the  alleviation  and  redemption 
of  the  world.  Then  only  can  the 
Gospel  take  hold  of  the  whole  of  a 
man,  body,  soul,  and  spirit,  and  give 
to  each  part  of  his  nature  its  exercise 
and  reward.  Many  of  the  current 
Gospels  are  addressed  only  to  a  part 
of  man's  nature.  They  offer  peace, 
not  life ;  faith,  not  Love  ;  justification, 
not  regeneration.  And  men  slip  back 
again  from  such  religion  because  it 
has  never  really  held  them.  Their 
nature  was  not  all  in  it,     It  offered  no 


IN    THE    WORLD.  73 

deeper  and  gladder  life-current  than 
the  life  that  was  lived  before.  Surely 
it  stands  to  reason  that  only  a  fuller 
love  can  compete  with  the  love  of  the 
world. 

To  love  abundantly  is  to  live  abun- 
dantly, and  to  love  forever  is  to  live 
forever.  Hence,  eternal  life  is  inex- 
tricably bound  up  with  love.  We 
want  to  live  forever  for  the  same  rea- 
son that  we  want  to  live  to-morrow. 
Why  do  you  want  to  live  to-morrow  ? 
It  is  because  there  is  some  one  who 
loves  you,  and  whom  you  want  to  see 
to-morrow,  and  be  with,  and  love 
back.  There  is  no  other  reason  why 
we  should  live  on  than  that  we  love 
and  are   beloved.     It   is   when   a   man 


74  THE    GREATEST    THING 

has  no  one  to  love  him  that  he  com- 
mits suicide.  So  long  as  he  has 
friends,  those  who  love  him  and  whom 
he  loves,  he  will  live,  because  to  live 
is  to  love.  Be  it  but  the  love  of  a  dog, 
it  will  keep  him  in  life;  but  let  that 
go  and  he  has  no  contact  with  life,  no 
reason  to  live.  He  dies  by  his  own 
hand.  Eternal  life  also  is  to  know 
God,  and  God  is  love.  This  is  Christ's 
own  definition.  Ponder  it.  **This  is 
life  eternal,  that  they  might  know  Thee 
the  only  true  God,  and  Jesus  Christ 
whom  Thou  has  sent."  Love  must  be 
eternal.  It  is  what  God  is.  On  the 
last  analysis,  then,  love  is  life.  Love 
never  faileth,  and  life  never  faileth,  so 
long   as    there    is    love.     That   is    the 


IN    THE    WORLD.  75 

philosophy  of  what  Paul  is  showing  us ; 
the  reason  why  in  the  nature  of  things 
Love  should  be  the  supreme  thing  — 
because  it  is  going  to  last ;  because  in 
the  nature  of  things  it  is  an  Eternal 
Life.  It  is  a  thing  that  we  are  liv- 
ing now,  not  that  we  get  when  we  die ; 
that  we  shall  have  a  poor  chance  of 
getting  when  we  die  unless  we  are 
living  now.  No  worse  fate  can  befall 
a  man  in  this  world  than  to  live  and 
grow  old  alone,  unloving,  and  unloved. 
To  be  lost  is  to  live  in  an  unregenerate 
condition,  loveless  and  unloved ;  and 
to  be  saved  is  to  love;  and  he  that 
dwelleth  in  love  dwelleth  already  in 
God.     For  God  is  Love. 

Now  I  have  all  but  finished.      How 


^6  THE    GREATEST   THING 

many  of  you  will  join  me  in  reading 
this  chapter  once  a  week  for  the  next 
three  months?  A  man  did  that  once 
and  it  changed  his  whole  life.  Will 
you  do  it  ?  It  is  for  the  greatest  thing 
in  the  world.  You  might  begin  by 
reading  it  every  day,  especially  the 
verses  which  describe  the  perfect  char- 
acter. **  Love  suffereth  long,  and  is 
kind  ;  love  envieth  not ;  love  vaunteth 
not  itself.'*  Get  these  ingredients  into 
your  life.  Then  everything  that  you 
do  is  eternal.  It  is  worth  doing.  It 
is  worth  giving  time  to.  No  man  can 
become  a  saint  in  his  sleep ;  and  to 
fulfill  the  condition  required  demands 
a  certain  amount  of  prayer  and  medi- 
tation  and  time,  just  as  improvement 


IN  THE   WORLD.  ^J 

in  any  direction,  bodily  or  mental,  re- 
quires preparation  and  care.  Address 
yourselves  to  that  one  thing;  at  any 
cost  have  this  transcendent  character 
exchanged  for  yours.  You  will  find 
as  you  look  back  upon  your  life  that 
the  moments  that  stand  out,  the  mo- 
ments when  you  have  really  lived,  are 
the  moments  when  you  have  done 
things  in  a  spirit  of  love.  As  memory 
scans  the  past,  above  and  beyond  all 
the  transitory  pleasures  of  life,  there 
leap  forward  those  supreme  hours 
when  you  have  been  enabled  to  do 
unnoticed  kindnesses  to  those  round 
about  you,  things  too  trifling  to  speak 
about,  but  which  you  feel  have  entered 
into   your   eternal   life.      I    have   seen 


y8  THE    GREATEST   THING 

almost  all  the  beautiful  things  God  has 
made;  I  have  enjoyed  almost  every 
pleasure  that  he  has  planned  for  man  ; 
and  yet  as  I  look  back  I  see  standing 
out  above  all  the  life  that  has  gone 
four  or  five  short  experiences  when  the 
love  of  God  reflected  itself  in  some 
poor  imitation,  some  small  act  of  love 
of  mine,  and  these  seem  to  be  the 
things  which  alone  of  all  one's  life 
abide.  Everything  else  in  all  our 
lives  is  transitory.  Every  other  good 
is  visionary.  But  the  acts  of  love 
which  no  man  knows  about,  or  can 
ever  know  about  —  they  never  fail. 

In  the  Book  of  Matthew,  where  the 
Judgment  Day  is  depicted  for  us  in 
the    imagery   of   One    seated    upon    a 


IN   THE   WORLD.  79 

throne  and  dividing  the  sheep  from 
the  goats,  the  test  of  a  man  then  is  not^ 
**  How  have  I  beUeved  ?  "  but  ''How 
have  I  loved?"  The  test  of  religion, 
the  final  test  of  religion,  is  not  relig- 
iousness, but  Love.  I  say  the  final 
test  of  religion  at  that  great  Day  is 
not  religiousness,  but  Love  ;  not  what  I 
have  done,  not  what  I  have  believed,, 
not  what  I  have  achieved,  but  how  I 
have  discharged  the  common  charities 
of  life.  Sins  of  commission  in  that 
awful  indictment  are  not  even  referred 
to.  By  what  we  have  not  done,  by 
sins  of  omission^  we  are  judged.  It 
could  not  be  otherwise.  For  the  with- 
holding of  love  is  the  negation  of  the 
spirit   of    Christ,    the     proof   that    we 


80  THE    GREATEST    THING 

never  knew  Him,  that  for  us  He  lived 
in  vain.  It  means  that  He  suggested 
nothing  in  all  our  thoughts,  that  He 
inspired  nothing  in  all  our  lives,  that 
we  were  not  once  near  enough  to  Him 
to  be  seized  with  the  spell  of  His  com- 
passion for  the  world.     It  means  that  — 

"  I  lived  for  myself,  I  thought  for  myself, 
For  myself,  and  none  beside  — 
Just  as  if  Jesus  had  never  lived, 
As  if  He  had  never  died." 

It  is  the  Son  of  3fan  before  whom 
the  nations  of  the  world  shall  be 
gathered.  It  is  in  the  presence  of 
Hiifnanity  that  we  shall  be  charged. 
And  the  spectacle  itself,  the  mere 
sight  of  it,  will  silently  judge  each 
one.      Those  will   be   there   whom  we 


IN    THE    WORLD.  8 1 

have  met  and  helped ;  or  there,  the 
unpitied  multitude  whom  we  neglected 
or  despised.  No  other  witness  need 
be  summoned.  No  other  charge  than 
lovelessness  shall  be  preferred.  Be 
not  deceived.  The  words  which  all  of 
us  shall  one  Day  hear  sound  not  of 
theology  but  of  life,  not  of  churches 
and  saints  but  of  the  hungry  and  the 
poor,  not  of  creeds  and  doctrines  but 
of  shelter  and  clothing,  not  of  Bibles 
and  prayer-books  but  of  cups  of  cold 
water  in  the  name  of  Christ.  Thank 
God  the  Christianity  of  to-day  is  com- 
ing nearer  the  world's  need.  Live  to 
help  that  on.  Thank  God  men  know 
better,  by  a  hairsbreadth,  what  religion 
is,  what  God  is,  who   Christ  is,  where 


82      GREATEST   THING    IN    THE   WORLD. 

Christ  is.  Who  is  Christ?  He  who 
fed  the  hungry,  clothed  the  naked, 
visited  the  sick.  And  where  is  Christ  ? 
Where?  —  whoso  shall  receive  a  little 
child  in  My  name  receiveth  Me.  And 
who  are  Christ*s?  Every  one  that 
loveth  is  born  of  God. 


PAX    VOBISCUM. 


"Come  unto  me,  all  ye  that  labor  and  are 
heavy  laden,  and  I  will  give  you  rest.  Take 
my  yoke  upon  you,  and  learn  of  me :  for  I  am 
meek  and  lowly  in  heart :  and  ye  shall  find 
rest  unto  your  souls.  For  my  yoke  is  easy, 
and  my  burden  is  light " 

8s 


PAX  VOBISCUM. 


I  HEARD  the  other  morning  a  ser- 
*  mon  by  a  distinguished  preacher 
upon  "  Rest."  It  was  full  of  beauti- 
ful thoughts ;  but  when  I  came  to  ask 
myself,  "  How  does  he  say  I  can  get 
Rest  ?  '*  there  was  no  answer.  The 
sermon  was  sincerely  meant  to  be 
practical,  yet  it  contained  no  experi- 
ence that  seemed  to  me  to  be  tangi- 
ble, nor  any  advice  which  could  help 
me  to  find  the  thing  itself  as  I  went 
about  the  world  that  afternoon.  Yet 
this    omission    of    the   only   important 

87 


88  PAX    VOBISCUM. 

problem  v/as  not  the  fault  of  the 
preacher.  The  whole  popular  religion 
is  in  the  twilight  here.  And  when 
pressed  for  really  working  specifics  for 
the  experiences  with  which  it  deals, 
it  falters,  and  seems  to  lose  itself  in 
mist. 

The  want  of  connection  betw^een  the 
great  words  of  religion  and  every-day 
life  has  bewildered  and  discouraged 
all  of  us.  Christianity  possesses  the 
noblest  words  in  the  language ;  its 
literature  overflows  with  terms  expres- 
sive of  the  greatest  and  happiest 
moods  which  can  fill  the  soul  of  man. 
Rest,  Joy,  Peace,  Faith,  Love,  Light 
—  these  words  occur  with  such  per- 
sistency in  hymns  and  prayers  that  an 


PEACE    BE    WITH    YOU.  89 

observer  might  think  they  formed  the 
staple  of  Christian  experience.  But 
on  coming  to  close  quarters  with  the 
actual  life  of  most  of  us,  how  surely 
would  he  be  disenchanted !  I  do  not 
think  we  ourselves  are  aware  how 
much  our  religious  life  is  made  up  of 
phrases;  how  much  of  what  we  call 
Christian  experience  is  only  a  dialect 
of  the  Churches,  a  mere  religious 
phraseology  with  almost  nothing  be- 
hind  it  in  what  we  really  feel  and 
know. 

To  some  of  us,  indeed,  the  Chris- 
tian experiences  seem  further  away 
than  when  we  took  the  first  steps  in 
the  Christian  life.  That  life  has  not 
opened  out  as  we   had  hoped ;   we  do 


90  PAX    VOBISCUM. 

not  regret  our  religion,  but  we  are  dis- 
appointed with  it.  There  are  times, 
perhaps,  when  wandering  notes  from 
a  diviner  music  stray  into  our  spirits  ; 
but  these  experiences  come  at  few  and 
fitful  moments.  We  have  no  sense  of 
possession  in  them.  When  they  visit 
us,  it  is  a  surprise.  When  they  leave 
us,  it  is  without  explanation.  When 
we  wish  their  return,  we  do  not  know 
how  to  secure  it. 

All  which  points  to  a  religion  with- 
out solid  base,  and  a  poor  and  flicker- 
ing life.  It  means  a  great  bankruptcy 
in  those  experiences  which  give  Chris- 
tianity its  personal  solace  and  make  it 
attractive  to  the  world,  and  a  great 
uncertainty  as  to   any  remedy.     It  is 


PEACE    BE    WITH    YOU.  9 1 

as  if  we  knew  everything  about  health 
—  except  the  way  to  get  it. 

I  am  quite  sure  that  the  difficulty 
does  not  lie  in  the  fact  that  men  are 
not  in  earnest.  This  is  simply  not  the 
fact.  All  around  us  Christians  are 
wearing  themselves  out  in  trying  to  be 
better.  The  amount  of  spiritual  long- 
ing in  the  world  —  in  the  hearts  of 
unnumbered  thousands  of  men  and 
women  in  whom  we  should  never  sus- 
pect it;  among  the  wise  and  thought- 
ful ;  among  the  young  and  gay,  who 
seldom  assuage  and  never  betray  their 
thirst  —  this  is  one  of  the  most  wonder- 
ful and  touching  facts  of  life.  It  is 
not  more  heat  that  is  needed,  but  more 
light;  not  more  force,  but  a  wiser  di- 


92  PAX    VOBISCUM. 

rection  to  be  given  to  very  real  energies 
already  there. 

The  Address  which  follows  is  offered 
as  an  humble  contribution  to  this  prob- 
lem, and  in  the  hope  that  it  may  help 
some  who  are  **  seeking  Rest  and  find- 
ing none  "  to  a  firmer  footing  on  one 
great,  solid,  simple  principle  which 
underlies  not  the  Christian  experiences 
alone,  but  all  experiences,  and  all  life. 

What  Christian  experience  wants  is 
thread,  a  vertebral  column,  method.  It 
is  impossible  to  believe  that  there  is 
no  remedy  for  its  unevenness  and  di- 
shevelment,  or  that  the  remedy  is  a 
secret.  The  idea,  also,  that  some  few 
men,  by  happy  chance  or  happier 
temperament,    have     been     given    the 


PFACK    BE    WITH    YOU.  93 

secret  —  as  if  there  were  some  sort  of 
knack  or  trick  of  it  —  is  wholly  incredi- 
ble. Religion  must  ripen  its  fruit  for 
every  temperament ;  and  the  way  even 
into  its  highest  heights  must  be  by  a 
gateway  through  which  the  peoples  of 
the  world  may  pass. 

I  shall  try  to  lead  up  to  this  gateway 
by  a  very  familiar  path.  But  as  that 
path  is  strangely  unfrequented,  and 
even  unknown,  where  it  passes  into 
the  religious  sphere,  I  must  dwell  for 
a  moment  on  the  coramonest  of  com- 
monplaces. 


94  PAX   VOBISCUM. 


EFFECTS  REQUIRE  CAUSES. 


NTOTHING  that  happens  in  the 
world  happens  by  chance.  God 
is  a  God  of  order.  Everything  is 
arranged  upon  definite  principles,  and 
never  at  random.  The  world,  even 
the  religious  world,  is  governed  by 
law.  Character  is  governed  by  law. 
Happiness  is  governed  by  law.  The 
Christian  experiences  are  governed  by 
law.  Men,  forgetting  this,  expect 
Rest,  Jo}^  Peace,  Faith  to  drop  into 
their  souls  from  the  air  like  snow  or 
rain.     But  in  point  of  fact  they  do  not 


EFFECTS  REQUIRE  CAUSES.     CJ 

do  SO ;  and  if  they  did  they  would  no 
less  have  their  origin  in  previous  ac- 
tivities and  be  controlled  by  natural 
laws.  Rain  and  snow  do  drop  from 
the  air,  but  not  without  a  long  pre- 
vious history.  They  are  the  mature 
effects  of  former  causes.  Equally  so 
are  Rest,  and  Peace,  and  Joy.  They^ 
too,  have  each  a  previous  history. 
Storms  and  winds  and  calms  are  not 
accidents,  but  are  brought  about  by 
antecedent  circumstances.  Rest  and 
Peace  are  but  calms  in  man's  inward 
nature,  and  arise  through  causes  as 
definite  and  as  inevitable. 

Realize  it  thoroughly :  it  is  a  me- 
thodical not  an  accidental  world.  If  a 
housewife  turns  out  a  good  cake,  it  is 


96  PAX   VOBISCUM. 

the  result  of  a  sound  receipt,  carefully 
applied.  She  cannot  mix  the  assigned 
ingredients  and  fire  them  for  the  ap- 
propriate time  without  producing  the 
result.  It  is  not  she  who  has  made  the 
cake ;  it  is  nature.  She  brings  related 
things  together;  sets  causes  at  work; 
these  causes  bring  about  the  result. 
She  is  not  a  creator,  but  an  interme- 
diary. She  does  not  expect  random 
causes  to  produce  specific  effects  — 
random  ingredients  would  only  pro- 
duce random  cakes.  So  it  is  in 
the  making  of  Christian  experiences. 
Certain  lines  are  followed;  certain 
effects  are  the  result.  These  effects 
cannot  but  be  the  result.  But  the 
result   can    never    take    place   without 


EFFECTS   REQUFRE    CAUSES.  9/ 

the  previous  cause.  To  expect  results 
without  antecedents  is  to  expect  cakes 
without  ingredients.  That  impossi- 
bility is  precisely  the  almost  universal 
expectation. 

Now  what  I  mainly  wish  to  do  is  to 
help  you  firmly  to  grasp  this  simple 
principle  of  Cause  and  Effect  in  the 
spiritual  world.  And  instead  of  ap- 
plying the  principle  generally  to  each 
of  the  Christian  experiences  in  turn,  I 
shall  examine  its  application  to  one  in 
some  little  detail.  The  one  I  shall 
select  is  Rest.  And  I  think  any  one 
who  follows  the  application  in  this 
single  instance  will  be  able  to  apply  it 
for  himself  to  all  the  others. 

Take  such  a  sentence  as  this:  Afri- 


98  PAX    VOBISCUM. 

can  explorers  are  subject  to  fevers 
which  cause  restlessness  and  delirium. 
Note  the  expression,  **  cause  restless- 
ness." Restlessfiess  has  a  cause.  Clearly 
then,  any  one  who  wished  to  get  rid 
of  restlessness  would  proceed  at  once 
to  deal  with  the  cause.  If  that  were 
not  removed,  a  doctor  might  pre- 
scribe a  hundred  things,  and  all  might 
be  taken  in  turn,  without  producing 
the  least  effect.  Things  are  so  ar- 
ranged in  the  original  planning  of  the 
world  that  certain  effects  must  follow 
certain  causes,  and  certain  causes 
must  be  abolished  before  certain  effects 
can  be  removed.  Certain  parts  of 
Africa  are  inseparably  linked  with  the 
physical   experience   called   fever;  this 


EFFECTS  REQUIRE  CAUSES.     99 

fever  is  in  turn  infallibly  linked  with  a 
mental  experience  called  restlessness 
and  delirium.  To  abolish  the  mental 
experience  the  radical  method  would 
be  to  abolish  the  physical  experience, 
and  the  way  of  abolishing  the  physical 
experience  would  be  to  abolish  Africa, 
or  to  cease  to  go  there.  Now  this 
holds  good  for  all  other  forms  of  Rest- 
lessness. Every  other  form  and  kind 
of  Restlessness  in  the  world  has  a 
definite  cause,  and  the  particular  kind 
of  Restlessness  can  only  be  removed 
by  removing  the  allotted  cause. 

All  this  is  also  true  of  Rest.  Rest- 
lessness has  a  cause :  must  not  Rest 
have  a  cause  ?  Necessarily.  If  it 
were    a    chance    world   we   would   not 


lOO  PAX    VOBISCUM. 

expect  this;  but,  being  a  methodical 
world,  it  cannot  be  otherwise.  Rest, 
physical  rest,  moral  rest,  spiritual  rest, 
every  kind  of  rest,  has  a  cause  as  cer- 
tainly as  restlessness.  Now  causes 
are  discriminating.  There  is  one  kind 
of  cause  for  every  particular  effect, 
and  no  other;  and  if  one  particular 
effect  is  desired,  the  corresponding 
cause  must  be  set  in  motion.  It  is  no 
use  proposing  finely  devised  schemes, 
or  going  through  general  pious  exer- 
cises in  the  hope  that  somehow  Rest 
will  come.  The  Christian  life  is  not 
casual,  but  causal.  All  nature  is  a 
standing  protest  against  the  absurdity 
of  expecting  to  secure  spiritual  effects, 
or  any  effects,  without  the  employment 


EFFECTS  REQUIRE  CAUSES.    TOT 

of  appropriate  causes.  The  Great 
Teacher  dealt  what  ought  to  have  been 
the  final  blow  to  this  infinite  irrelevancy 
by  a  single  question,  **Do  men  gather 
grapes  of  thorns  or  figs  of  thistles  ? " 

Why,  then,  did  the  Great  Teacher 
not  educate  His  followers  fully  ?  Why 
did  He  not  tell  us,  for  example,  how 
such  a  thing  as  Rest  might  be  obtained  ? 
The  answer  is,  that  He  did.  But 
plainly,  explicitly,  in  so  many  words  .'^ 
Yes,  plainly,  explicitly,  in  so  many 
words.  He  assigned  Rest  to  its  cause, 
in  words  with  which  each  of  us  has 
been  familiar  from  his  earliest  child- 
hood. 

He  begins,  you  remember  —  for  you 
at  once  know  the  passage  I  refer  to  — - 


I02  PAX   VOBISCUM. 

almost  as  if  Rest  could  be  had  without 
any  cause :  ''  Come  unto  Me,"  He 
says,  ''  and  I  will  £-ive  you  Rest." 

Rest,  apparently,  was  a  favor  to  be 
bestowed ;  men  had  but  to  come  to 
Him ;  He  would  give  it  to  every  appli- 
cant. But  the  next  sentence  takes 
that  all  back.  The  qualification,  in- 
deed, is  added  instantaneously.  For 
what  the  first  sentence  seemed  to  give 
was  next  thing  to  an  impossibility. 
For  how,  in  a  literal  sense,  can  Rest 
be  give7i?  One  could  no  more  give 
away  Rest  than  he  could  give  away 
Laughter.  We  speak  of  *' causing" 
laughter,  which  we  can  do ;  but  we 
cannot  give  it  away.  When  we  speak 
of  giving  pain,  we  know  perfectly  well 


EFFECTS  REQUIRE  CAUSES.    IO3 

we  cannot  give  pain  away.  And 
when  we  aim  at  giving  pleasure,  all 
that  we  do  is  to  arrange  a  set  of  cir- 
cumstances in  such  a  way  as  that 
these  shall  cause  pleasure.  Of  course 
there  is  a  sense,  and  a  very  wonderful 
sense,  in  which  a  Great  Personality 
breathes  upon  all  who  come  within  its 
influence  an  abiding  peace  and  trust. 
Men  can  be  to  other  men  as  the  shadow 
of  a  great  rock  in  a  thirsty  land. 
Much  more  Christ ;  much  more  Christ 
as  Perfect  Man ;  much  more  still  as 
Savior  of  the  world.  But  it  is  not  this 
of  which  I  speak.  When  Christ  said 
He  would  give  men  rest.  He  meant 
simply  that  He  would  put  them  in  the 
way  of   it.     By  no  act   of   conveyano'^ 


104  PAX    VOBISCUM. 

would,  or  could,  He  make  over  His 
own  Rest  to  them.  He  could  give 
them  His  receipt  for  it.  That  was  alL 
But  He  would  not  make  it  for  them ; 
for  one  thing,  it  was  not  in  His  plan  to 
make  it  for  them ;  for  another  thing, 
men  were  not  so  planned  that  it  could 
be  made  for  them ;  and  for  yet  another 
thing,  it  was  a  thousand  times  better 
that  they  should  make  it  for  them- 
selves. 

That  this  is  the  meaning  becomes 
obvious  from  the  wording  of  the  second 
sentence :  '^  Learn  of  Me  and  ye  shall 
find  Rest."  Rest,  that  is  to  say,  is 
not  a  thing  that  can  be  given,  but  a 
thing  to  be  acquired.  It  comes  not  by 
an  act,  but  by  a  process.     It  is  not  to 


EFFECTS  REQUIRE  CAUSES.    10$ 

be  found  in  a  happy  hour,  as  one  finds 
a  treasure ;  but  slowly,  as  one  finds 
knowledge.  It  could  indeed  be  no 
more  found  in  a  moment  than  could 
knowledge.  A  soil  has  to  be  prepared 
for  it.  Like  a  fine  fruit,  it  will  grow 
in  one  climate  and  not  in  another;  at 
one  altitude  and  not  at  another.  Like 
all  growths  it  will  have  an  orderly  de- 
velopment and  mature  by  slow  degrees. 
The  nature  of  this  slow  process 
Christ  clearly  defines  when  He  says 
we  are  to  achieve  Rest  by  learning. 
*'  Learn  of  Me,"  He  says,  "  and  ye 
shall  find  Rest  to  your  souls."  Now 
consider  the  extraordinary  originality 
of  this  utterance.  How  novel  the  con- 
nection    between     these     two     words. 


I06  PAX    VOBISCUM. 

"  Learn  ''  and  "  Rest "  !  How  few  of 
us  have  ever  associated  them  —  ever 
thought  that  Rest  was  a  thing  to  be 
learned;  ever  laid  ourselves  out  for  it 
as  we  would  to  learn  a  language ;  ever 
practiced  it  as  we  would  practice  the 
violin  ?  Does  it  not  show  how  entirely- 
new  Christ's  teaching  still  is  to  the 
world,  that  so  old  and  threadbare  an 
aphorism  should  still  be  so  little  ap- 
plied? The  last  thing  most  of  us 
would  have  thought  of  would  have 
been  to  associate  Rest  with    Work. 

What  must  one  work  at?  What  is 
that  which  if  duly  learned  will  find  the 
soul  of  man  in  Rest?  Christ  answers 
without  the  least  hesitation.  He  speci- 
fies two  things  —  Meekness  and  Low- 


EFFECTS  REQUIRE  CAUSES.    10/ 

liness.  *'  Learn  of  Me,"  He  says, 
•'for  I  am  meek  and  lowly  in  heart." 
Now,  these  two  things  are  not  chosen 
at  random.  To  these  accompHsh- 
ments,  in  a  special  way,  Rest  is  at- 
tached. Learn  these,  in  short,  and 
you  have  already  found  Rest.  These 
as  they  stand  are  direct  causes  of 
Rest ;  will  produce  it  at  once ;  cannot 
but  produce  it  at  once.  And  if  you 
think  for  a  single  moment,  you  will 
see  how  this  is  necessarily  so,  for 
causes  are  never  arbitrary,  and  the 
connection  between  antecedent  and 
consequent  here  and  everywhere  lies 
deep  in  the  nature  of  things. 

What   is   the    connection,   then }      I 
answer  by  a   further   question.     What 


I08  PAX   VOBISCUM. 

are  the  chief  causes  of  Unrest?  If 
you  know  yourself,  you  will  answer 
Pride,  Selfishness,  Ambition.  As  you 
look  back  upon  the  past  years  of  your 
life,  is  it  not  true  that  its  unhappiness 
has  chiefly  come  from  the  succession 
of  personal  mortifications,  and  almost 
trivial  disappointments  which  the  in- 
tercourse of  life  has  brought  you  ? 
Great  trials  come  at  lengthened  inter- 
vals, and  we  rise  to  breast  them  ;  but 
it  is  the  petty  friction  of  our  every 
day  life  with  one  another,  the  jar 
of  business  or  of  work,  the  discord 
of  the  domestic  circle,  the  collapse  of 
our  ambition,  the  crossing  of  our  will 
or  the  taking  down  of  our  conceit, 
which  make  inward   peace   impossible. 


EFFECTS  REQUIRE  CAUSES.    lOQ 

Wounded  vanity,  then,  disappointed 
hopes,  unsatisfied  selfishness  —  these 
are  the  old,  vulgar,  universal  sources 
of  man's  unrest. 

Now  it  is  obvious  why  Christ  pointed 
out  as  the  two  chief  objects  for  attain- 
ment the  exact  opposites  of  these.  To 
Meekness  and  Lowliness  these  things 
simply  do  not  exist.  They  cure  unrest 
by  making  it  impossible.  These  reme- 
dies do  not  trifle  with  surface  symp- 
toms ;  they  strike  at  once  at  removing 
causes.  The  ceaseless  chagrin  of  a 
self-centered  life  can  be  removed  at 
once  by  learning  Meekness  and  Low- 
liness of  heart.  He  who  learns  them 
is  for  ever  proof  against  it.  He  lives 
henceforth    a     charmed     life.      Chris- 


no  PAX    VOBISCUM. 

tianity  is  a  fine  inoculation,  a  transfu- 
sion of  healthy  blood  into  an  anaemic 
or  poisoned  soul.  No  fever  can  attack 
a  perfectly  sound  body ;  no  fever  of 
unrest  can  disturb  a  soul  which  has 
breathed  the  air  or  learned  the  ways 
of  Christ.  Men  sigh  for  the  wings  of 
a  dove  that  they  may  fly  away  and  be 
at  rest.  But  flying  away  will  not  help 
us.  ''The  Kingdom  of  God  is  within 
you.''  We  aspire  to  the  top  to  look 
I  for  Rest ;  it  lies  at  the  bottom.  Water 
rests  only  when  it  gets  to  the  lowest 
place.  So  do  men.  Hence,  be  lowly. 
The  man  who  has  no  opinion  of  him- 
self at  all  can  never  be  hurt  if  others 
do  not  acknowledge  him.  Hence,  be 
meek.      He   who    is    without    expecta- 


EFFECTS  REQUIRE  CAUSES.    Ill 

tion  cannot  fret  if  nothing  comes  to 
him.  It  is  self-evident  that  these 
things  are  so.  The  lowly  man  and 
the  meek  man  are  really  above  all 
other  men,  above  all  other  things. 
They  dominate  the  world  because  they 
do  not  care  for  it.  The  miser  does 
not  possess  gold,  gold  possesses  him. 
But  the  meek  possess  it.  "The  meek," 
said  Christ,  "  inherit  the  earth."  They 
do  not  buy  it ;  they  do  not  conquer  it ; 
but  they  inherit  it. 

There  are  people  who  go  about  the 
world  looking  out  for  slights,  and  they 
are  necessarily  miserable,  for  they  find 
them  at  every  turn  —  especially  the  im- 
aginary ones.  One  has  the  same  pity 
for   such   men    as    for   the   very   poor. 


112  PAX    VOBISCUM. 

They  are  the  morally  illiterate.  They 
have  had  no  real  education,  for  they 
have  never  learned  how  to  live.  Few 
men  know  how  to  live.  We  grow  up 
at  random,  carrying  into  mature  life 
the  merely  animal  methods  and  mo- 
tives which  we  had  as  little  children. 
And  it  does  not  occur  to  us  that  all 
this  must  be  changed ;  that  much  of  it 
must  be  revised ;  that  life  is  the  finest 
of  the  Fine  Arts ;  that  it  has  to  be 
learned  with  lifelong  patience,  and  that 
the  years  of  our  pilgrimage  are  all  too 
short  to  master  it  triumphantly. 

Yet  this  is  what  Christianity  is  for  — 
to  teach  men  the  Art  of  Life.  And 
its  whole  curriculum  lies  in  one  word  — 
'*  Learn,  of    Me."     Unlike  most  educa- 


EFFECTS  REQUIRE  CAUSES.    II J 

tion,  this  is  almost  purely  personal ;  it 
is  not  to  be  had  from  books  or  lectures 
or  creeds  or  doctrines.  It  is  a  study 
from  the  life.  Christ  never  said  much 
in  mere  words  about  the  Christian 
Graces.  He  lived  them,  He  was  them. 
Yet  we  do  not  merely  copy  Him. 
We  learn  His  art  by  living  with  Him, 
like  the  old  apprentices  with  their 
masters. 

Now  we  understand  it  all?  Christ's 
invitation  to  the  weary  and  heavy- 
laden  is  a  call  to  begin  life  over  again 
upon  a  new  principle  —  upon  His  own 
principle.  **  Watch  My  way  of  doing 
things,"  He  says.  ''  Follow  Me. 
Take  life  as  I  take  it.  Be  meek  and 
lowly  and  you  will  find  Rest." 


114  PAX   VOBISCUM. 

I  do  not  say,  remember,  that  the 
Christian  life  to  every  man,  or  to  any 
man,  can  be  a  bed  of  roses.  No  edu- 
cational process  can  be  this.  And 
perhaps  if  some  men  knew  how  much 
was  involved  in  the  simple  "learn"  of 
Christ,  they  would  not  enter  His  school 
with  so  irresponsible  a  heart.  For 
there  is  not  only  much  to  learn,  but 
much  to  unlearn.  Many  men  never 
go  to  this  school  at  all  till  their  dis- 
position is  already  half  ruined  and 
character  has  taken  on  its  fatal  set. 
To  learn  arithmetic  is  difficult  at  fifty  — 
much  more  to  learn  Christianity.  To 
learn  simply  what  it  is  to  be  meek  and 
lowly,  in  the  case  of  one  who  has  had 
no   lessons   in   that   in  childhood,  may 


EFFECTS  REQUIRE  CAUSES.    II5 

cost  him  half  of  what  he  values  most 
on  earth.  Do  we  realize,  for  instance, 
that  the  way  of  teaching  humility  is 
generally  by  Junniliation.  There  is 
probably  no  other  school  for  it.  When 
a  man  enters  himself  as  a  pupil  in  such 
a  school  it  means  a  very  great  thing. 
There  is  such  Rest  there,  but  there 
is  also  much  Work. 

I  should  be  wrong,  even  though  my 
theme  is  the  brighter  side,  to  ignore: 
the  cross  and  minimize  the  cost.  Only 
it  gives  to  the  cross  a  more  definite 
meaning,  and  a  rarer  value,  to  con- 
nect it  thus  directly  and  causally  with 
the  growth  of  the  inner  life.  Our 
platitudes  on  the  "benefits  of  afflic- 
tion "   are   usually    about   as   vague    as- 


Il6  PAX   VOBISCUM. 

our  theories  of  Christian  Experience. 
^'Somehow,"  we  believe  affliction  does 
us  good.  But  it  is  not  a  question  of 
^*  Somehow."  The  result  is  definite, 
calculable,  necessary.  It  is  under  the 
strictest  law  of  cause  and  effect.  The 
first  effect  of  losing  one's  fortune,  for 
instance,  is  humiliation  ;  and  the  effect 
of  humiliation,  as  we  have  just  seen, 
is  to  make  one  humble ;  and  the  effect 
of  being  humble  is  to  produce  Rest. 
It  is  a  roundabout  way,  apparently,  of 
producing  Rest;  but  Nature  generally 
works  by  circular  processes ;  and  it  is 
not  certain  that  there  is  any  other  way 
of  becoming  humble,  or  of  finding 
Rest.  If  a  man  could  make  himself 
humble    to    order,    it    might    simplify 


EFFECTS  REQUIRE  CAUSES.    11/ 

matters,  but  we  do  not  find  that  this 
happens.  Hence  we  must  all  go 
through  the  mill.  Hence  death,  death 
to  the  lower  self,  is  the  nearest  gate 
and  the  quickest  road  to  life. 

Yet  this  is  only  half  the  truth. 
Christ's  life  outwardly  was  one  of  the 
most  troubled  lives  that  was  ever  lived : 
Tempest  and  tumult,  tumult  and  tem- 
pest, the  waves  breaking  over  it  all  the 
time  till  the  worn  body  was  laid  in  the 
grave.  But  the  inner  life  was  a  sea 
of  glass.  The  great  calm  was  always 
there.  At  any  moment  you  might 
have  gone  to  Him  and  found  Rest. 
And  even  when  the  blood-hounds  were 
dogging  Him  in  the  streets  of  Jeru- 
salem, He  turned  to  His  disciples  and 


Il8  PAX   VOBISCUM. 

offered  them  as  a  last  legacy,  "My 
peace."  Nothing  ever  for  a  moment 
broke  the  serenity  of  Christ's  life  on 
earth.  Misfortune  could  not  reach 
Him ;  He  had  no  fortune.  Food,  rai- 
ment, money  —  fountain-heads  of  half 
the  world's  weariness  —  He  simply  did 
not  care  for;  they  played  no  part  in 
His  life;  He  "took  no  thought"  for 
them.  It  was  impossible  to  affect  Him 
by  lowering  His  reputation.  He  had 
already  made  himself  of  no  reputation. 
He  was  dumb  before  insult.  When  He 
was  reviled  He  reviled  not  again.  In 
fact,  there  was  nothing  that  the  world 
could  do  to  Him  that  could  ruffle  the 
surface  of  His  spirit. 

Such  living,  as  merely  living,  is   al- 


EFFECTS  REQUIRE  CAUSES.    I  IQ 

together  unique.  It  is  only  when  we 
see  what  it  was  in  Him  that  we  can 
know  w^hat  the  word  Rest  means.  It 
lies  not  in  emotions,  nor  in  the  absence 
of  emotions.  It  is  not  a  hallowed  feel- 
ing that  comes  over  us  in  church.  It 
is  not  something  that  the  preacher  has 
in  his  voice.  It  is  not  in  nature,  or  in 
poetry,  or  in  music  —  though  in  all 
these  there  is  soothing.  It  is  the  mind 
at  leisure  from  itself.  It  is  the  perfect 
poise  of  the  soul;  the  absolute  adjust- 
ment of  the  inward  man  to  the  stress 
of  all  outward  things;  the  prepared- 
ness against  every  emergency ;  the 
stability  of  assured  convictions ;  the 
eternal  calm  of  an  invulnerable  faith ; 
the  repose  of  a  heart  set  deep  in  God. 


I20  PAX    VOBISCUM. 

It  is  the  mood  of  the  man  who  says, 
with  Browning^  "  God's  in  His  Heaven^ 
all's  well  with  the  world." 

Two  painters  each  painted  a  picture 
to  illustrate  his  conception  of  rest. 
The  first  chose  for  his  scene  a  still, 
lone  lake  among  the  far-off  moun- 
tains. The  second  threw  on  his  can- 
vas a  thundering  water-fall,  with  a 
fragile  birch  tree  bending  over  the 
foam ;  at  the  fork  of  a  branch,  almost 
wet  with  the  cataract's  spray,  a  robin 
sat  on  its  nest.  The  first  was  only 
Stagnation  ;  the  last  was  Rest.  For  in 
Rest  there  are  always  two  elements  — 
tranquility  and  energy ;  silence  and 
turbulence ;  creation  and  destruction ; 
fearlessness  and  fearfulness.  This  it 
was  in  Christ. 


EFFECTS  REQUIRE  CAUSES.    121 

It  is  quite  plain  from  all  this  that 
whatever  else  He  claimed  to  be  or  to 
do,  He  at  least  knew  how  to  live.  All 
this  is  the  perfection  of  living,  of  liv- 
ing in  the  mere  sense  of  passing 
through  the  world  in  the  best  way. 
Hence  His  anxiety  to  communicate 
His  idea  of  life  to  others.  He  came. 
He  said,  to  give  men  life,  true  life,  a 
more  abundant  life  than  they  were 
living;  "the  life,"  as  the  fine  phrase 
in  the  Revised  Version  has  it,  "  that  is 
life  indeed."  This  is  what  He  him- 
self possessed,  and  it  was  this  which 
He  offers  to  all  mankind.  And  hence 
His  direct  appeal  for  all  to  come  to 
Him  who  had  not  made  much  of  life, 
who    were    weary    and    heavy    laden. 


122  PAX    VOBISCUM. 

These  He  would  teach  His  secret 
They,  also,  should  know  "the  life  that 
is  life  indeed/* 


WHAT   YOKES   ARE   FOR.  1 23 


WHAT   YOKES   ARE   FOR. 


nPHERE  is  still  one  doubt  to  clear 
^  up.  After  the  statement,  '*  Learn 
of  Me,"  Christ  throws  in  the  discon- 
certing qualification,  "  Take  My  Yoke 
upon  you  and  learn  of  Me.'*  Why,  if 
all  this  be  true,  does  He  call  it  a  yoke? 
Why,  while  professing  to  give  Rest, 
does  He  with  the  next  breath  whisper 
*^ burden''  f  Is  the  Christian  life,  after 
all,  what  its  enemies  take  it  for  —  an 
additional  weight  to  the  already  great 
woe  of  life,  some  extra  punctiliousness 
about  duty,  some  painful  devotion  to  ob^ 


124  PAX   VOBISCUM. 

servances,  some  heavy  restriction  and 
trammelling  of  all  that  is  joyous  and 
free  in  the  world  ?  Is  life  not  hard  and 
sorrowful  enough  without  being  fet- 
tered with  yet  another  yoke  ? 

It  is  astounding  how  so  glaring  a 
misunderstanding  of  this  plain  sentence 
should  ever  have  passed  into  currency. 
Did  you  ever  stop  to  ask  what  a  yoke 
is  really  for  ?  Is  it  to  be  a  burden  to 
the  animal  which  wears  it  ?  It  is  just 
the  opposite.  It  is  to  make  its  burden 
light.  Attached  to  the  oxen  in  any 
other  way  than  by  a  yoke,  the  plough 
would  be  intolerable.  Worked  by 
means  of  a  yoke,  it  is  light.  A  yoke 
is  not  an  instrument  of  torture;  it  is 
an   instrument  of  mercy.       It  is  not  a 


WHAT    YOKES    ARE    FOR.  125 

malicious  contrivance  for  making  work 
hard ;  it  is  a  gentle  device  to  make 
hard  labor  light.  It  is  not  meant  to 
give  pain,  but  to  save  pain.  And  yet 
men  speak  of  the  yoke  of  Christ  as  if 
it  were  a  slavery,  and  look  upon  those 
who  wear  it  as  objects  of  compassion. 
For  generations  we  have  had  homi- 
lies on  "The  Yoke  of  Christ,"  some 
delighting  in  portraying  its  narrow 
exactions;  some  seeking  in  these  exac- 
tions the  marks  of  its  divinity ;  others 
apologizing  for  it,  and  toning  it  down ; 
still  others  assuring  us  that,  although 
it  be  very  bad,  it  is  not  to  be  compared 
with  the  positive  blessings  of  Chris- 
tianity. How  many,  especially  among 
the     young,    has    this    one     mistaken 


126  PAX    VOBISCUM. 

phrase  driven  forever  away  from  the 
kingdom  of  God  ?  Instead  of  making 
Christ  attractive,  it  makes  Him  out 
a  taskmaster,  narrowing  life  by  petty 
restrictions,  calling  for  self-denial 
where  none  is  necessary,  making  mis- 
ery a  virtue  under  the  plea  that  it  is 
the  yoke  of  Christ,  and  happiness 
criminal  because  it  now  and  then 
evades  it.  According  to  this  concep- 
tion. Christians  are  at  best  the  victims 
of  a  depressing  fate ;  their  life  is  a 
penance ;  and  their  hope  for  the  next 
world  purchased  by  a  slow  martyrdom 
in  this. 

The  mistake  has  arisen  from  taking 
the  word  **yoke"  here  in  the  same 
sense,    as    in    the    expressions    "  under 


WHAT    YOKES    ARE    FOR.  12/ 

the  yoke,"  or  "wear  the  yoke  in  his 
youth.'*  But  in  Christ's  illustration 
it  is  not  the  jugiivi  of  the  Roman 
soldier,  but  the  simple  **  harness " 
or  "  ox-collar  "  of  the  Eastern  peasant. 
It  is  the  literal  wooden  yoke  which  He, 
with  His  own  hands  in  the  carpenter 
shop,  had  probably  often  made.  He 
knew  the  difference  between  a  smooth 
yoke  and  a  rough  one,  a  bad  fit  and  a 
good  fit ;  the  difference  also  it  made  to 
the  patient  animal  which  had  to  wear 
it.  The  rough  yoke  galled,  and  the 
burden  was  heavy ;  the  smooth  yoke 
caused  no  pain,  and  the  burden  was 
lightly  drawn.  The  badly-fitted  har- 
ness was  a  misery;  the  well-fitted  col- 
lar was  *'  easy." 


128  PAX    VOBISCUM. 

And  what  was  the  ''  burden  "  ?  It 
was  not  some  special  burden  laid  upon 
the  Christian,  some  unique  infliction 
that  they  alone  must  bear.  It  was 
what  all  men  bear.  It  was  simply 
life,  human  life  itself,  the  general  bur- 
den of  life  which  all  must  carry  with 
them  from  the  cradle  to  the  grave. 
Christ  saw  that  men  took  life  painfully. 
To  some  it  was  a  weariness,  to  others 
a  failure,  to  many  a  tragedy,  to  all  a 
struggle  and  a  pain.  How  to  carry 
this  burden  of  life  had  been  the  whole 
world's  problem.  It  is  still  the  whole 
world's  problem.  And  here  is  Christ's 
solution  :  "  Carry  it  as  I  do.  Take 
life  as  I  take  it.  Look  at  it  from  My 
point  of  view.       Interpret  it  upon   My 


WHAT    YOKES    ARE    FOR.  129 

principles.  Take  My  yoke  and  learn 
of  Me,  and  you  will  find  it  easy.  For 
My  yoke  is  easy,  works  easily,  sits 
right  upon  the  shoulders,  and  therefore 
My  burden  is  light." 

There  is  no  suggestion  here  that 
religion  will  absolve  any  man  from 
bearing  burdens.  That  would  be  to 
absolve  him  from  living,  since  it  is 
life  itself  that  is  the  burden.  What 
Christianity  does  propose  is  to  make  it 
tolerable.  Christ's  yoke  is  simply  His 
secret  for  the  alleviation  of  human  life, 
His  prescription  for  the  best  and  hap- 
piest method  of  living.  Men  harness 
themselves  to  the  work  and  stress  of 
the  world  in  clumsy  and  unnatural 
ways.      The   harness    they   put  on    is 


I30  PAX    VOBISCUM. 

antiquated.  A  rough,  ill-fitted  collar 
at  the  best,  they  make  its  strain  and 
friction  past  endurin'g,  by  placing  it 
where  the  neck  is  most  sensitive ;  and 
by  mere  continuous  irritation  this  sen- 
sitiveness increases  until  the  whole 
nature  is  quick  and  sore. 

This  is  the  origin,  among  other 
things,  of  a  disease  called  "  touchi- 
ness "  —  a  disease  which,  in  spite  of  its 
innocent  name,  is  one  of  the  gravest 
sources  of  restlessness  in  the  world. 
Touchiness,  when  it  becomes  chronic, 
is  a  morbid  condition  of  the  inward 
disposition.  It  is  self-love  inflamed  to 
the  acute  point;  conceit,  with  a  hair- 
trigger.  The  cure  is  to  shift  the  yoke 
to  some  other  place ;   to  let  men  and 


WHAT    YOKES    ARE    FOR.  I3I 

things  touch  us  through  some  new  and 
perhaps  as  yet  unused  part  of  our 
nature  ;  to  become  meek  and  lowly  in 
heart  while  the  old  nature  is  becoming 
numb  from  want  of  use.  It  is  the  beau- 
tiful work  of  Christianity  everywhere  to 
adjust  the  burden  of  life  to  those  who 
bear  it,  and  them  to  it.  It  has  a  per- 
fectly miraculous  gift  of  healing.  With- 
out doing  any  violence  to  human  nature 
it  sets  it  right  with  life,  harmonizing  it 
with  all  surrounding  things,  and  restor- 
ing those  who  are  jaded  with  the  fatigue 
and  dust  of  the  world  to  a  new  grace 
of  living.  In  the  mere  matter  of  alter- 
ing the  perspective  of  life  and  changing 
the  proportion  of  things,  its  functions  in 
lightening  the  care  of  man  is  altogether 


132  PAX    VOBISCUM. 

its  own.  The  weight  of  a  load  depends 
upon  the  attraction  of  the  earth.  But 
suppose  the  attraction  of  the  earth  were 
removed?  A  ton  on  some  other  planet, 
where  the  attraction  of  gravity  is  less, 
does  not  weigh  half  a  ton.  Now  Chris- 
tianity removes  the  attraction  of  the 
earth,  and  this  is  one  way  in  which 
it  diminishes  men's  burden.  It  makes 
them  citizens  of  another  world.  What 
was  a  ton  yesterday  is  not  half  a  ton 
to-day.  So  without  changing  one's  cir- 
cumstances, merely  by  offering  a  wider 
horizon  and  a  different  standard,  it  alters 
the  whole  aspect  of  the  world. 

Christianity  as  Christ  taught  is  the 
truest  philosophy  of  life  ever  spoken. 
But  let  us  be  quite  sure  when  we  speak 


WHAT   YOKES   ARE    FOR.  1 33 

of  Christianity  that  we  mean  Christ's 
Christianity.  Other  versions  are  either 
caricatures,  or  exaggerations,  or  mis- 
understandings, or  shortsighted  and 
surface  readings.  For  the  most  part 
their  attainment  is  hopeless  and  the 
results  wretched.  But  I  care  not  who 
the  person  is,  or  through  what  vale  of 
tears  he  has  passed,  or  is  about  to  pass, 
there  is  a  new  life  for  him  along  this 
path. 


134  P^X   VOBISCUM. 


HOW  FRUITS   GROW. 


"I  1[  yTERE  Rest  my  subject,  there  are 
*  ^  other  things  I  should  wish  to 
say  about  it,  and  other  kinds  of  Rest 
of  which  I  should  like  to  speak.  But 
that  is  not  my  subject.  My  theme  is 
that  the  Christian  experiences  are  not 
the  work  of  magic,  but  come  under 
the  law  of  Cause  and  Effect.  And  I 
have  chosen  Rest  only  as  a  single 
illustration  of  the  working  of  that 
principle.  If  there  were  time  I  might 
next  run  over  all  the  Christian  experi- 
ences in  turn,  and  show  how  the  same 


HOW    FRUITS    GROW.  I  35 

wide  law  applies  to  each.  But  I  think 
it  may  serve  the  better  purpose  if 
I  leave  this  further  exercise  to  your- 
selves. I  know  no  Bible  study  that 
you  will  find  more  full  of  fruit,  or 
which  will  take  you  nearer  to  the  ways 
of  God,  or  make  the  Christian  life 
itself  more  solid  or  more  sure.  I  shall 
add  only  a  single  other  illustration  of 
what  I  mean,  before  I  close. 

Where  does  Joy  come  from  ?  I 
knew  a  Sunday  scholar  whose  con- 
ception of  Joy  was  that  it  was  a  thing 
made  in  lumps  and  kept  somewhere  in 
Heaven,  and  that  when  people  prayed 
for  it,  pieces  were  somehow  let  down 
and  fitted  into  their  souls.  I  am  not 
sure  that  views  as  gross  and  material 


136  PAX    VOBISCUM. 

are  not  often  held  by  people  who  ought 
to  be  wiser.  In  reality,  Joy  is  as 
much  a  matter  of  Cause  and  Effect  as 
pain.  No  one  can  get  Joy  by  merely 
asking  for  it.  It  is  one  of  the  ripest 
fruits  of  the  Christian  life,  and,  like 
all  fruits,  must  be  grown.  There  is  a 
very  clever  trick  in  India  called  the 
mango-trick.  A  seed  is  put  in  the 
ground  and  covered  up,  and  after 
divers  incantations  a  full-blown  mango 
bush  appears  within  five  minutes.  I 
never  met  any  one  who  knew  how 
the  thing  was  done,  but  I  never  met 
any  one  who  believed  it  to  be  any- 
thing else  than  a  conjuring-trick.  The 
world  is  pretty  unanimous  now  in  its 
belief    in    the    orderliness    of    Nature. 


HOW    FRUITS    GROW.  1 3/ 

Men  may  not  know  how  fruits  grow, 
but  they  do  know  that  they  cannot 
grow  in  five  minutes.  Some  lives 
have  not  even  a  stalk  on  which  fruits 
could  hang,  even  if  they  did  grow  in 
five  minutes.  Some  have  never  planted 
one  sound  seed  of  Joy  in  all  their  lives : 
and  others  who  may  have  planted  a 
germ  or  two  have  lived  so  little  in 
sunshine  that  they  never  could  come 
to  maturity. 

Whence,  then,  is  joy.^  Christ  put 
His  teaching  upon  this  subject  into  one 
of  the  most  exquisite  of  His  parables. 
I  should  in  any  instance  have  appealed 
to  His  teaching  here,  as  in  the  case  of 
Rest  for  I  do  not  wish  you  to  think  I 
am  speaking  words  of   my  own.     But 


138  PAX    VOBISCUM. 

it  SO  happens  that  He  has  dealt  with  it 
in  words  of  unusual  fulness. 

I  need  not  recall  the  whole  illustra- 
tion. It  is  the  parable  of  the  Vine. 
Did  you  ever  think  why  Christ  spoke 
that  parable  ?  He  did  not  merely 
throw  it  into  space  as  a  fine  illustration 
of  general  truths.  It  was  not  simply  a 
statement  of  the  mystical  union,  and 
the  doctrine  of  an  indwelling  Christ. 
It  was  that;  but  it  was  more.  After 
He  had  said  it,  He  did  what  was  not 
an  unusual  thing  when  He  was  teaching 
His  greatest  lessons.  He  turned  to 
the  disciples  and  said  He  would  tell 
them  why  He  had  spoken  it.  It  was 
to  tell  them  how  to  get  joy.  "These 
things  have   I   spoken   unto  you,"   He 


HOW    FRUITS    GROW.  1 39 

said,  "that  My  joy  might  remain  in 
you  and  that  your  Joy  might  be  full." 
It  was  a  purposed  and  deliberate  com- 
munication of  His  secret  of  Happiness. 
Go  back  over  these  verses,  then,  and 
you  will  find  the  Causes  of  this  Effect, 
the  spring,  and  the  only  spring,  out  of 
which  true  Happiness  comes.  I  am  not 
going  to  analyze  them  in  detail.  I  ask 
you  to  enter  into  the  words  for  your- 
selves. Remember,  in  the  first  place, 
that  the  Vine  was  the  Eastern  symbol 
of  Joy.  It  was  its  fruit  that  made  glad 
the  heart  of  man.  Yet,  however  inno- 
cent that  gladness  —  for  the  expressed 
juice  of  the  grape  was  the  common 
drink  at  every  peasant's  board  —  the 
gladness  was  only  a  gross  and  passing 


I40  PAX   VOBISCUM. 

thing.  This  was  not  true  happiness, 
and  the  vine  of  the  Palestine  vineyards 
was  not  the  true  vine.  Christ  was  "  the 
true  Vine."  Here,  then,  is  the  ulti- 
mate source  of  Joy.  Through  whatever 
media  it  reaches  us,  all  true  joy  and 
Gladness  find  their  source  in  Christ. 
By  this,  of  course,  is  not  meant  that  the 
actual  Joy  experienced  is  transferred 
from  Christ's  nature,  or  is  something 
passed  on  from  Him  to  us.  What  is 
passed  on  is  His  method  of  getting 
it.  There  is,  indeed,  a  sense  in  which 
we  can  share  another's  joy  or  an- 
other's sorrow.  But  that  is  another 
matter.  Christ  is  the  source  of  Joy 
to  men  in  the  sense  in  which  He  is 
the  source  of  Rest.     His  people  share 


HOW    FRUITS    GROW.  I4I 

His  life,  and  therefore  share  its  con- 
sequences, and  one  of  these  is  Joy. 
His  method  of  living  is  one  that  in  the 
nature  of  things  produces  Joy.  When 
He  spoke  of  His  Joy  remaining  with 
us,  He  meant  in  part  that  the  causes 
which  produced  it  should  continue  to 
act.  His  followers,  that  is  to  say, 
by  repeating  His  life  would  experi- 
ence its  accompaniments.  His  Joy, 
His  kind  of  Joy,  would  remain  with 
them. 

The  medium  through  which  this  Joy 
comes  is  next  explained :  "  He  that 
abideth  in  Me,  the  same  bringeth  forth 
much  fruit."  Fruit  first,  Joy  next;  the 
one  the  cause  or  medium  of  the  other. 
Fruit-bearing   is   the  necessary  antece- 


142  PAX   VOBISCUM. 

dent ;  Joy  both  the  necessary  conse- 
quent and  the  necessary  accompani- 
ment. It  lay  partly  in  the  bearing 
fruit,  partly  in  the  fellowship  which 
made  that  possible.  Partly,  that  is  to 
say,  Joy  lay  in  mere  constant  living  in 
Christ's  presence,  with  all  that  that 
implied  of  peace,  of  shelter  and  of 
love;  partly  in  the  influence  of  that 
Life  upon  mind  and  character  and 
will ;  and  partly  in  the  inspiration  to 
live  and  work  for  others,  with  all  that 
that  brings  of  self-riddance  and  Joy 
in  others'  gain.  All  these,  in  different 
ways  and  at  different  times,  are  sources 
of  pure  Happiness.  Even  the  sim- 
plest of  them  —  to  do  good  to  other 
people  —  is     an     instant    and    infalli- 


HOW    FRUITS    GROW.  1 43 

ble  specific.  There  is  no  mystery 
about  Happiness  whatever.  Put  in  the 
right  ingredients  and  it  must  come  out. 
He  that  abideth  in  Him  will  bring 
forth  much  fruit;  and  bringing  forth 
much  fruit  is  Happiness.  The  infalli- 
ble receipt  for  Happiness,  then,  is  to 
do  good  ;  and  the  infallible  receipt  for 
doing  good  is  to  abide  in  Christ.  The 
surest  proof  that  all  this  is  a  plain 
matter  of  Cause  and  Effect  is  that  men 
may  try  every  other  conceivable  way 
of  finding  Happiness,  and  they  will 
fail.  Only  the  right  cause  in  each 
case  can  produce  the  right  effect. 

Then  the  Christian  experiences  are 
our  own  making  ?  In  the  same  sense 
in  which  grapes  are  our  own  making, 


144  PAX    VOBISCUM. 

and  no  more.  All  fruits  grow  — 
whether  they  grow  in  the  soil  or  in 
the  soul ;  whether  they  are  the  fruits 
of  th^  wild  grape  or  of  the  True  Vine. 
No  man  can  make  things  grow.  He 
can  get  them  to  gr'oiv  by  arranging  all 
the  circumstances  and  fulfilling  all  the 
conditions.  But  the  growing  is  done 
by  God.  Causes  and  effects  are  eternal 
arrangements,  set  in  the  constitution  of 
the  world ;  fixed  beyond  man's  order- 
ing. What  man  can  do  is  to  place 
himself  in  the  midst  of  a  chain  of 
sequences.  Thus  he  can  get  things  to 
grow  :  thus  he  himself  can  grow.  But 
the  grower  is  the  Spirit  of  God. 

What   more   need   I   add  but  this  — 
test  the   method  by   experiment.       Do 


HOW    FKUnS    liKOW.  I45 

not  imagine  that  you  have  got  these 
things  because  you  know  how  to  get 
them.  As  well  try  to  feed  upon  a 
cookery  book.  But  I  think  I  can 
promise  that  if  you  try  in  this  simple 
and  natural  way,  you  will  not  fail. 
Spend  the  time  you  have  spent  in 
sighing  for  fruits  in  fulfilling  the  con- 
ditions of  their  growth.  The  fruits 
will  come,  must  come.  We  have  hith- 
erto paid  immense  attention  to  effects, 
to  the  mere  experiences  themselves ; 
we  have  described  them,  extolled  them, 
advised  them,  prayed  for  them  —  done 
everything  but  find  out  what  caused 
them.  Henceforth  let  us  deal  with 
causes.  "  To  be,''  says  Lotze,  *'  is  to 
be   in   relations."      About   every   other 


146  PAX    VOBISCUM. 

method  of  living  the  Christian  life 
there  is  an  uncertainty.  About  every 
other  method  of  acquiring  the  Chris- 
tian experiences  there  is  a  "  perhaps." 
But  in  so  far  as  this  method  is  the 
way  of  nature,  it  cannot  fail.  Its 
guarantee  is  the  laws  of  the  universe, 
and  these  are  "  the  Hands  of  the  Liv- 
ing God." 


THE   TRUE    VINE.  1 4/ 


THE  TRUE   VINE. 


**  I  AM  the  true  vine,  and  my  Father 
is  the  husbandman.  Every  branch 
in  me  that  beareth  not  fruit  he  taketh 
away :  and  every  branch  that  beareth 
fruit,  he  purgeth  it,  that  it  may  bring 
forth  more  fruit.  Now  ye  are  clean 
through  the  word  which  I  have  spoken 
unto  you.  Abide  in  me,  and  I  in 
you.  As  the  branch  cannot  bear  fruit 
of  itself,  except  it  abide  in  the  vine ; 
no  more  can  ye,  except  ye  abide  in 
me.  I  am  the  vine,  ye  are  the 
branches :  he  that  abideth  in  me,  and 
I  in  him,  the  same  bringeth  forth  much 


148  PAX   VOBISCUM. 

fruit:  for  without  me  ye  can  do  noth- 
ing. If  a  man  abide  not  in  me,  he  is 
cast  forth  as  a  branch,  and  is  withered ; 
and  men  gather  them,  and  cast  them 
into  the  fire,  and  they  are  burned.  If 
ye  abide  in  me,  and  my  word  abide  in 
you,  ye  shall  ask  what  ye  will,  and  it 
shall  be  done  unto  you.  Herein  is 
my  Father  glorified,  that  ye  may  bear 
much  fruit ;  so  ye  shall  be  my  disciples. 
As  the  Father  hath  loved  me,  so 
have  I  loved  you :  continue  ye  in  my 
love.  If  ye  keep  my  commandments, 
ye  shall  abide  in  my  love ;  even  as  I 
have  kept  my  Father's  commandments, 
and  abide  in  his  love.  These  things 
have  I  spoken  unto  you,  that  my  joy 
might  remain  in  you,  and  that  your 
joy  might  be  full." 


THE    CHANGED    LIFE. 


PREFACE. 

T  AST  autumn,  in  a  book-shop  in 
^^  California,  the  author  found  a 
little  book  with  his  name  upon  the  title- 
page  —  a  book  which  he  did  not  know 
existed ;  which  he  never  wrote ;  nor 
baptized  with  the  title  which  it  bore. 
This  stray  publication  —  taken  from 
shorthand  notes  of  a  spoken  Address  — 
he  does  not  grudge.  Already,  it  seens, 
it  has  done  its  small  measure  of  good. 
But  owing  to  the  imperfections  which 
it  contains  it  has  been  thought  right  to 
issue  a  more  complete  edition. 

151 


152  PREFACE. 

The  theme,  like  its  predecessors  in 
this  series,  represents  but  a  single 
aspect  of  its  great  subject  —  the  man- 
ward  side.  The  light  and  shade  is 
apportioned  with  this  in  view.  And 
the  reader's  kind  attention  is  asked  to 
this  limitation,  lest  he  wonder  at  points 
being  left  in  shadow  which  theology 
has  always,  and  rightly,  taught  us  to 
emphasize. 

It  was  the  hearing  of  a  simple  talk 
by  a  friend  to  some  plain  people  in  a 
Highland  deer-forest  which  first  called 
the  author's  attention  to  the  practical- 
ness of  this  solution  of  the  cardinal 
problem  of  Christian  experience.  What 
follows  owes  a  large  debt  to  that  Sunday 
morning. 


We  all 

With  unveiled  face 

Reflecting 

As  a  Mirror 

The  Glory  of  the  Lord 

Are  transformed 

Into  the  same  image 

From  Glory  to  Glory 

Even  as  from  the  Lord 

The  Spirit. 


153 


THE  CHANGED   LIFE. 


"  I  PROTEST  that  if  some  great  power  would 
agree  to  make  me  always  think  what  is  true 
and  do  what  is  right,  on  condition  of  being 
turned  into  a  sort  of  clock  and  wound  up  every 
morning,  I  should  instantly  close  with  the 
offer." 

nPHESE  are  the  words  of  Mr.  Hux- 
^  ley.  The  infinite  desirability,  the 
infinite  difficulty  of  being  good  —  the 
theme  is  as  old  as  humanity.  The 
man  does  not  live  from  whose  deeper 
being  the  same  confession  has  not 
risen,  or  who   would   not   give   his   all 

I5S 


IS6  THE    CHANGED    LIFE. 

to-morrow,  if  he  could  "  close  with  the 
offer,"  of  becoming  a  better  man. 

I  propose  to  make  that  offer  now. 
In  all  seriousness,  without  being 
"turned  into  a  sort  of  clock,"  the  end 
can  be  attained.  Under  the  right  con- 
ditions it  is  as  natural  for  character  to 
become  beautiful  as  for  a  flower  ;  and 
if  on  God's  earth  there  is  not  some 
machinery  for  effecting  it,  the  supreme 
gift  to  the  world  has  been  forgotten. 
This  is  simply  what  man  was  made 
for.  With  Browning :  "  I  say  that 
Man  was  made  to  grow,  not  stop." 
Or  in  the  deeper  words  of  an  older 
Book :  **  Whom  He  did  foreknow,  He 
also  did  predestinate  ...  to  be  con- 
formed to  the  Image  of  His  Son." 


THE    CHANGED    LIFE.  I  $7 

Let  me  begin  by  naming,  and  in 
part  discarding,  some  processes  in 
vogue  already,  for  producing  better 
lives.  These  processes  are  far  from 
wrong ;  in  their  place  they  may  even 
be  essential.  One  ventures  to  dispar- 
age them  only  because  they  do  not 
turn  out  the  most  perfect  possible 
work. 

The  first  imperfect  method  is  to  rely 
on  Resolution.  In  will-power,  in  mere 
spasms  of  earnestness  there  is  no  sal- 
vation. Struggle,  effort,  even  agony, 
have  their  place  in  Christianity,  as  we 
shall  see ;  but  this  is  not  where  they 
come  in.  In  mid- Atlantic  the  other 
day,  the  Etruria,  in  which  I  was  sail- 
ing,    suddenly     stopped.       Something 


158  THE    CHANGED    LIFE. 

had  gone  wrong  with  the  engines. 
There  were  five  hundred  able-bodied 
men  on  board  the  ship.  Do  you  think 
that  if  we  had  gathered  together  and 
pushed  against  the  mast  we  could  have 
pushed  it  on  ?  When  one  attempts  to 
sanctify  himself  by  effort,  he  is  trying 
to  make  his  boat  go  by  pushing  against 
the  mast.  He  is  like  a  drowning  man 
trying  to  lift  himself  out  of  the  water 
by  pulling  at  the  hair  of  his  own  head. 
Christ  held  up  this  method  almost  to 
ridicule  when  he  said,  "  Which  of  you 
by  taking  thought  can  add  a  cubit  to 
his  stature  ?  "  The  one  redeeming  fea- 
ture of  the  self-sufficient  method  is  this 
—  that  those  who  try  it  find  out  almost 
at  once  that  it  will  not  gain  the  goal. 


THE    CHANGED    LIFE.  l$g 

Another  experimenter  says  :  *'  But 
that  is  not  my  method.  I  have  seen 
the  folly  of  a  mere  wild  struggle  in 
the  dark.  I  work  on  a  principle.  My 
plan  is  not  to  waste  power  on  random 
effort,  but  to  concentrate  on  a  single 
sin.  By  taking  one  at  a  time,  and 
crucifying  it  steadily,  I  hope  in  the 
end  to  extirpate  all."  To  this,  unfor- 
tunately, there  are  four  objections : 
For  one  thing,  life  is  too  short ;  the 
name  of  sin  is  Legion.  For  another 
thing,  to  deal  with  individual  sins  is  to 
leave  the  rest  of  the  nature  for  the  time 
untouched.  In  the  third  place  a  single 
combat  with  a  special  sin  does  not  affect 
the  root  and  spring  of  the  disease.  If 
only  one  of  the  channels  of  sin  be  ob- 


l60  THE    CHANGED    LIFE. 

structed,  experience  points  to  an  almost 
certain  overflow  through  some  other 
part  of  the  nature.  Partial  conversion 
is  almost  always  accompanied  by  such 
moral  leakage,  for  the  pent-up  energies 
accumulate  to  the  bursting  point,  and 
the  last  state  of  that  soul  may  be  worse 
than  the  first.  In  the  last  place,  reli- 
gion does  not  consist  in  negatives,  in 
stopping  this  sin  and  stopping  that. 
The  perfect  character  can  never  be 
produced  with  a  pruning  knife. 

But  a  third  protests  :  "  So  be  it.  I 
make  no  attempt  to  stop  sins  one  by 
one.  My  method  is  just  the  opposite. 
I  copy  the  virtues  one  by  one."  The 
difficulty  about  the  copying  method  is 
that  it  is  apt  to  be  mechanical.      One 


THE    CHANGED    TJFE.  l6l 

can  always  tell  an  engraving  from  a 
picture,  an  artificial  flower  from  a  real 
flower.  To  copy  virtues  one  by  one 
has  somewhat  the  same  effect  as  erad- 
icating the  vices  one  by  one ;  the 
temporary  result  is  an  overbalanced 
and  incongruous  character.  Some  one 
defines  a  p7ng  as  *'  a  creature  that  is 
over-fed  for  its  size.''  One  sometimes 
finds  Christians  of  this  species — over- 
fed on  one  side  of  their  nature,  but 
dismally  thin  and  starved-looking  on 
the  other.  The  result  for  instance,  of 
copying  Humility,  and  adding  it  on  to 
an  otherwise  worldly  life,  is  simply  gro- 
tesque. A  rabid  teniperance  advocate, 
for  the  same  reason,  is  often  the  poor- 
est of  creatures,  flourishing  on  a  single 


1 62  THE    CHANGED    LIFE. 

virtue,  and  quite  oblivious  that  his  Tem- 
perance is  making  a  worse  man  of 
him  and  not  a  better.  These  are 
examples  of  fine  virtues  spoiled  by 
association  with  mean  companions. 
Character  is  a  unity,  and  all  the  virtues 
must  advance  together  to  make  the 
perfect  man.  This  method  of  sanctifi- 
cation,  nevertheless,  is  in  the  true 
direction.  It  is  only  in  the  details  of 
execution  that  it  fails. 

A  fourth  method  I  need  scarcely 
mention,  for  it  is  a  variation  on  those 
already  named.  It  is  the  very  young 
man's  method  ;  and  the  pure  earnest- 
ness of  it  makes  it  almost  desecration 
to  touch  it.  It  is  to  keep  a  private 
note-book   with   columns   for  the  days 


THE    CHANGED    LIFE.  163 

of  the  week,  and  a  list  of  virtues  with 
spaces  against  each  for  marks.  This, 
with  many  stern  rules  for  preface,  is 
stored  away  in  a  secret  place,  and 
from  time  to  time,  at  nightfall,  the 
soul  is  arraigned  before  it  as  before 
a  private  judgment  bar.  This  living 
by  code  was  Franklin's  method ;  and 
I  suppose  thousands  more  could  tell 
how  they  had  hung  up  in  their  bed- 
rooms, or  hid  in  lock-fast  drawers,  the 
rules  which  one  solemn  day  they  drew 
up  to  shape  their  lives.  This  method 
is  not  erroneous,  only  somehow  its 
success  is  poor.  You  bear  me  wit- 
ness that  it  fails.  And  it  fails  gener- 
ally for  very  matter-of-fact  reasons  — 
most  likely  because  one  day  we  forget 
the  rules. 


164  THE    CHANGED    LIFE. 

All  these  methods  that  have  been 
named  —  the  self-sufficient  method,  the 
self-crucifixion  method,  the  mimetic 
method,  and  the  diary  method  —  are 
perfectly  human,  perfectly  natural,  per- 
fectly ignorant,  and,  as  they  stand,  per- 
fectly inadequate.  It  is  not  argued,  I 
repeat,  that  they  must  be  abandoned. 
Their  harm  is  rather  that  they  distract 
attention  from  the  true  working  method, 
and  secure  a  fair  result  at  the  expense 
of  the  perfect  one.  What  that  perfect 
method  is  we  shall  now  go  on  to  ask. 


FORMULA    OF    SANCTIFICATION.       1 65 


THE   FORMULA   OF    SANCTI- 
FICATION. 


A  FORMULA,  a  receipt,  for  Sanc- 
tification  —  can  one  seriously 
speak  of  this  mighty  change  as  if  the 
process  were  as  definite  as  for  the  pro- 
duction of  so  many  volts  of  electricity  ? 
It  is  impossible  to  doubt  it.  Shall  a 
mechanical  experiment  succeed  infalli- 
bly, and  the  one  vital  experiment  of 
humanity  remain  a  chance  ?  Is  corn 
to  grow  by  method,  and  character  by 
caprice  ?  If  we  cannot  calculate  to  a 
certainty   that   the    forces    of    religion 


l66  THE    CHANGED    LIFE. 

will  do  their  work,  then  is  religion 
vain.  And  if  we  cannot  express  the 
law  of  these  forces  in  simple  words, 
then  is  Christianity  not  the  world's 
religion,  but  the  world's  conundrum. 

Where,  then,  shall  one  look  for  such 
a  formula  ?  Where  one  would  look  for 
any  formula  —  among  the  text-books. 
And  if  we  turn  to  the  text-books  of 
Christianity  we  shall  find  a  formula  for 
this  problem  as  clear  and  precise  as 
any  in  the  mechanical  sciences.  If 
this  simple  rule,  moreover,  be  but  fol- 
lowed fearlessly,  it  will  yield  the  result 
of  a  perfect  character  as  surely  as  any 
result  that  is  guaranteed  by  the  laws  of 
nature.  The  finest  expression  of  this 
rule  in  Scripture,  or  indeed  in  any  lit- 


FORMULA    OF    SANXTIFICATION.        1 67 

erature,  is  probably  one  drawn  up  and 
condensed  into  a  single  verse  by  Paul. 
You  will  find  it  in  a  letter —  the  second 
to  the  Corinthians  —  written  by  him  to 
some  Christian  people  who,  in  a  city 
which  was  a  byword  for  depravity  and 
licentiousness,  were  seeking  the  higher 
life.  To  see  the  point  of  the  words  we 
must  take  them  from  the  immensely 
improved  rendering  of  the  Revised 
translation,  for  the  older  Version  in 
this  case  greatly  obscures  the  sense. 
They  are  these :  "  We  all,  with  un- 
veiled face  reflecting  as  a  mirror  the 
glory  of  the  Lord,  are  transformed 
into  the  same  image  from  glory  to 
glory,  even  as  from  the  Lord  the 
Spirit." 


l68   ^  THE    CHANGED    LIFE. 

Now  observe  at  the  outset  the  (entire 
contradiction  of  all  our  previous  efforts, 
in  the  simple  passive  *Sve  are  trans- 
formed/' We  are  changed,  as  the 
Old  Version  has  it  —  we  do  not  change 
ourselves.  No  man  can  change  him- 
self. Throughout  the  New  Testament 
you  will  find  that  wherever  these 
moral  and  spiritual  transformations  are 
described  the  verbs  are  in  the  passive. 
Presently  it  will  be  pointed  out  that 
there  is  a  rationale  in  this;  but  mean 
time  do  not  toss  these  words  aside  as 
if  this  passivity  denied  all  human  effort 
or  ignored  intelligible  law.  What  is 
implied  for  the  soul  here  is  no  more 
than  is  everywhere  claimed  for  the 
body.       In    physiology    the    verbs    de- 


FORMULA    OF    SANCTIFICATION.        1 69 

scribing  the  processes  of  growth  are 
in  the  passive.  Growth  is  not  volun- 
tary ;  it  takes  place,  it  happens,  it  is 
wrought  upon  matter.  So  here.  "Ye 
must  be  born  again  "  —  we  cannot  born 
ourselves.  "  Be  not  conformed  to  this 
world,  but  be  ye  trans for77icd''  —  we  are 
subjects  to  transforming  influence,  we 
do  not  transform  ourselves.  Not  more 
certain  is  it  that  it  is  something  outside 
the  thermometer  that  produces  a  change 
in  the  thermometer,  than  it  is  some- 
thing outside  the  soul  of  man  that 
produces  a  moral  change  upon  him. 
That  he  must  be  susceptible  to  that 
change,  that  he  must  be  a  party  to  it, 
goes  without  saying;  but  that  neither 
his  aptitude  nor  his  will  can  produce 
it,  is  equally  certain. 


170  THE    CHANGED    LIFE. 

Obvious  as  it  ought  to  seem,  this 
may  be  to  some  an  almost  startling 
revelation.  The  change  we  have  been 
striving  after  is  not  to  be  produced  by 
any  more  striving  after.  It  is  to  be 
wrought  upon  us  by  the  moulding  of 
hands  beyond  our  own.  As  the  branch 
ascends,  and  the  bud  bursts,  and  the 
fruit  reddens  under  the  co-operation  of 
influences  from  the  outside  air,  so  man 
rises  to  the  higher  stature  under  invisi- 
ble pressures  from  without.  The  radi- 
cal defect  of  all  our  former  methods 
of  sanctification  was  the  attempt  to 
generate  from  within  that  which  can 
only  be  wrought  upon  us  from  without. 
According  to  the  first  Law  of  Motion : 
Every   body    continues    in    its    state  of 


FORMULA    OF    SANCTIFICATION.        I7I 

rest,  or  of  uniform  motion  in  a  straight 
line,  except  in  so  far  as  it  may  be  com- 
pelled by  impressed  forces  to  change 
that  state.  This  is  also  a  first  law  of 
Christianity.  Every  man's  character 
remains  as  it  is,  or  continues  in  the  di- 
rection in  which  it  is  going,  until  it  is 
compelled  by  ijnpi'essed  forces  to  change 
that  state.  Our  failure  has  been  the 
failure  to  put  ourselves  in  the  way  of 
the  impressed  forces.  There  is  a  clay, 
and  there  is  a  Potter ;  we  have  tried  to 
get  the  clay  to  mould  the  clay. 

Whence,  then,  these  pressures,  and 
where  this  Potter }  The  answer  of  the 
formula  is  "  By  reflecting  as  a  mirror 
the  glory  of  the  Lord  we  are  changed." 
But   this  is  not   very  clear.      What   is 


17^2  THE    CHANGED    LIFE. 

the  "glory"  of  the  Lord,  and  how  can 
mortal  man  reflect  it,  and  how  can  that 
act  as  an  "impressed  force"  in  mould- 
ing him  to  a  nobler  form  ?  The  word 
"glory"  —  the  word  which  has  to  bear 
the  weight  of  holding  those  "  impressed 
forces "  —  is  a  stranger  in  current 
speech,  and  our  first  duty  is  to  seek 
out  its  equivalent  in  working  English. 
It  suggests  at  first  a  radiance  of  some 
kind,  something  dazzling  or  glittering, 
some  halo  such  as  the  old  masters 
loved  to  paint  round  the  heads  of  their 
Ecce  Homos.  But  that  is  paint,  mere 
matter,  the  visible  symbol  of  some 
unseen  thing.  What  is  that  unseen 
thing  ?  It  is  that  of  all  unseen  things 
the    most    radiant,   the    most    beautiful. 


FORMULA    OF    SANCTIFICATION.        1/3 

the  most  Divine,  and  that  is  Character. 
On  earth,  in  Heaven,  there  is  nothing 
so  great,  so  glorious  as  this.  The 
word  has  many  meanings  ;  in  ethics  it 
can  have  but  one.  Glory  is  character, 
and  nothing  less,  and  it  can  be  nothing 
more.  The  earth  is  '^  full  of  the  glory 
of  the  Lord,"  because  it  is  full  of  His 
character.  The  "  Beauty  of  the  Lord  " 
is  character.  "The  effulgence  of  His 
Glory "  is  character.  "  The  Glory  of 
the  Only  Begotten "  is  character,  the 
character  vv^hich  is  *' fulness  of  grace 
and  truth."  And  when  God  told  His 
people  His  name  He  simply  gave  them 
His  character.  His  character  which 
was  Himself :  ''  And  the  Lord  pro- 
claimed the  name  of  the  Lord     .     .     . 


174  THE    CHANGED    LIFE. 

the  Lord,  the  Lord  God,  merciful  and 
gracious,  long-suffering  and  abundant 
in  goodness  and  truth."  Glory  then  is 
not  something  intangible,  or  ghostly, 
or  transcendental.  If  it  were  this 
how  could  Paul  ask  men  to  reflect  it  ? 
Stripped  of  its  physical  enswathement 
it  is  Beauty,  moral  and  spiritual  Beauty, 
Beauty  infinitely  real,  infinitely  exalted, 
yet  infinitely  near  and  infinitely  com- 
municable. 

With  this  explanation  read  over  the 
sentence  once  more  in  paraphrase : 
We  all  reflecting  as  a  mirror  the  char- 
acter of  Christ  are  transformed  into  the 
same  Image  from  character  to  charac- 
ter—  from  a  poor  character  to  a  better 
one,  from  a  belter  one  to  one  a  little 


FORMULA    OF    SANCTIFICATION.        1/5 

better  still,  from  that  to  one  still  more 
complete,  until  by  slow  degrees  the 
Perfect  Image  is  attained.  Here  the 
solution  of  the  problem  of  sanctification 
is  compressed  into  a  sentence  :  Reflect 
the  character  of  Christ,  and  you  will 
become  like  Christ. 

All  men  are  mirrors  —  that  is  the  first 
law  on  which  this  formula  is  based. 
One  of  the  aptest  descriptions  of  a 
human  being  is  that  he  is  a  mirron 
As  we  sat  at  table  to-night  the  world 
in  which  each  of  us  lived  and  moved 
throughout  this  day  was  focussed  in 
the  room.  What  we  saw  as  we  looked 
at  one  another  was  not  one  another, 
but  one  another's  world.  We  were 
an     arrangement      of      mirrors.       The 


176  THE    CHANGED    LIFE. 

scenes  we  saw  were  all  reproduced ; 
the  people  we  met  walked  to  and  fro ; 
they  spoke,  they  bowed,  they  passed 
us  by,  did  everything  over  again  as  if 
it  had  been  real.  When  we  talked, 
we  were  but  looking  at  our  own  mir- 
ror and  describing  what  flitted  across 
it ;  our  listening  was  not  hearing,  but 
seeing  —  we  but  looked  on  our  neigh- 
bor's mirror.  All  human  intercourse 
is  a  seeing  of  reflections.  I  meet  a 
stranger  in  a  railway  carnage.  The 
cadence  of  his  first  word  tells  me  he 
is  English,  and  comes  from  Yorkshire. 
Without  knowing  it  he  has  reflected 
his  birthplace,  his  parents,  and  the 
long  history  of  their  race.  Even  phys- 
iologically he  is  a  mirror.     His  second 


FORMULA    OF    SANCTIFICATION.        1 7/ 

sentence  records  that  he  is  a  politician, 
and  a  faint  inflection  in  the  way  he 
pronounces  The  Times  reveals  his 
party.  In  his  next  remarks  I  see  re- 
flected a  whole  world  of  experiences. 
The  books  he  has  read,  the  people 
he  has  met,  the  influences  that  have 
played  upon  him  and  made  him  the 
man  he  is  —  these  are  all  registered 
there  by  a  pen  which  lets  nothing 
pass,  and  whose  writing  can  never  be 
blotted  out.  What  I  am  reading  in 
him  meantime  he  also  is  reading  in 
me ;  and  before  the  journey  is  over 
we  could  half  write  each  other's  lives^ 
Whether  we  like  it  or  not,  we  live  in 
glass  houses.  The  mind,  the  memory, 
the    soul,   is    simply   a    vast    chamber 


lyS  THE    CHANGED    LIFE. 

panelled  with  looking-glass.  And  upon 
this  miraculous  arrangement  and  en- 
dowment depends  the  capacity  of  mor- 
tal souls  to  "  reflect  the  character  of 
the  Lord." 

But  this  is  not  all.  If  all  these 
varied  reflections  from  our  so-called 
secret  life  are  patent  to  the  world,  how 
close  the  writing,  how  complete  the 
record,  within  the  soul  itself  !  For  the 
influences  we  meet  are  not  simply  held 
for  a  moment  on  the  polished  surface 
and  thrown  off  again  into  space.  Each 
is  retained  where  first  it  fell,  and  stored 
up  in  the  soul  forever. 

This  law  of  Assimilation  is  the  sec- 
ond, and  by  far  the  most  impressive 
truth  which   underlies   the    formula   of 


FORMULA    OF    SANCTIFICATION.       1/9 

sanctification  —  the  truth  that  men  are 
not  only  mirrors,  but  that  these  mirrors, 
so  far  from  being  mere  reflectors  of  the 
fleeting  things  they  see,  transfer  into 
their  own  inmost  substance,  and  hold 
in  permanent  preservation,  the  things 
that  they  reflect.  No  one  knows  how 
the  soul  can  hold  these  things.  No 
one  knows  how  the  miracle  is  done. 
No  phenomenon  in  nature,  no  process 
in  chemistry,  no  chapter  in  necro- 
mancy can  ever  help  us  to  begin  to 
understand  this  amazing  operation. 
For,  think  of  it,  the  past  is  not  only 
focussed  there,  in  a  man's  soul,  it  is 
there.  How  could  it  be  reflected  from 
there  if  it  were  not  there  ?  All  things 
that   he    has    ever    seen,    known,    felt, 


l80  THE    CHANGED    LIFE. 

believed  of  the  surrounding  world  are 
now  within  him,  have  become  part  of 
him,  in  part  are  him  —  he  has  been 
changed  into  their  image.  He  may 
deny  it,  he  may  resent  it,  but  they  are 
there.  They  do  not  adhere  to  him, 
they  are  transfused  through  him.  He 
cannot  alter  or  rub  them  out.  They 
are  not  in  his  memory,  they  are  in 
him.  His  soul  is  as  they  have  filled  it, 
made  it,  left  it.  These  things,  these 
books,  these  events,  these  influences 
are  his  makers.  In  their  hands  are 
life  and  death,  beauty  and  deformity. 
When  once  the  image  or  likeness  of 
any  of  these  is  fairly  presented  to  the 
soul,  no  power  on  earth  can  hinder 
two    things    happening  —  it    must    be 


FORMULA    OF    SANCTIFICATION.        l8l 

absorbed    into    the    soul,    and    forever 
reflected  back  again  from  character. 

Upon  these  astounding  yet  perfectly 
obvious  psychological  facts,  Paul  bases 
his  doctrine  of  sanctification.  He 
sees  that  character  is  a  thing  built 
up  by  slow  degrees,  that  it  is  hourly 
changing  for  better  or  for  worse 
according  to  the  images  which  flit 
across  it.  One  step  further  and  the 
whole  length  and  breadth  of  the  appli- 
cation of  these  ideas  to  the  central 
problem  of  religion  will  stand  before 
us. 


l82  THE    CHANGED    LIFE. 


THE   ALCHEMY   OF   INFLU- 
ENCE. 


IF  events  change  men,  much  more 
^  persons.  No  man  can  meet  an- 
other on  the  street  without  making 
some  mark  upon  him.  We  say  we 
exchange  words  when  we  meet;  what 
we  exchange  is  souls.  And  when  inter- 
course is  very  close  and  very  frequent, 
so  complete  is  this  exchange  that  rec- 
ognizable bits  of  the  one  soul  begin 
to  show  in  the  other's  nature,  and  the 
second  is  conscious  of  a  similar  and 
growing  debt  to  the  first. 


THE    ALCHEMY    OF    INFLUENCE.        1 83 

This  mysterious  approximating  of 
two  souls  who  has  not  witnessed  ? 
Who  has  not  watched  some  old  couple 
come  down  life's  pilgrimage  hand  in 
hand,  with  such  gentle  trust  and  joy  in 
one  another  that  their  very  faces  wore 
the  self -same  look  ?  These  were  not 
two  souls ;  it  was  a  composite  soul. 
It  did  not  matter  to  which  of  the 
two  you  spoke  you  would  have  said 
the  same  words  to  either.  It  was 
quite  indifferent  which  replied,  each 
would  have  said  the  same.  Half  a 
century's  rejlectmg  had  told  upon 
them ;  they  were  changed  into  the 
same  image.  It  is  the  Law  of  In- 
fluence that  zve  become  like  those  whom 
we  habitually   admWe :    these   had  be- 


1 84  THE   CHANGED    LIFE. 

come  like  because  they  habitually 
admired.  Through  all  the  range  of 
literature,  of  history,  and  biography 
this  law  presides.  Men  are  all  mosaics 
of  other  men.  There  was  a  savor  of 
David  about  Jonathan  and  a  savor  of 
Jonathan  about  David.  Jean  Valjean, 
in  the  masterpiece  of  Victor  Hugo,  is 
Bishop  Bienvenu  risen  from  the  dead. 
Metempsychosis  is  a  fact.  George 
Eliot's  message  to  the  world  was  that 
men  and  women  make  men  and  wo- 
men. The  Family,  the  cradle  of 
mankind,  has  no  meaning  apart  from 
this.  Society  itself  is  nothing  but  a 
rallying  point  for  these  omnipotent 
forces  to  do  their  work.  On  the  doc- 
trine of  Influence,  in  short,  the  whole 
vast  pyramid  of  humanity  is  built. 


THE  ALCHEMY  OF  INFLUENCE.   185 

But  it  was  resented  for  Paul  to  make 
the  supreme  application  of  the  Law  of 
Influence.  It  was  a  tremendous  infer- 
ence to  make,  but  he  never  hesitated. 
He  himself  was  a  changed  man ;  he 
knew  exactly  what  had  done  it ;  it  was 
Christ.  On  the  Damascus  road  they 
met,  and  from  that  hour  his  life  was 
absorbed  in  His.  The  effect  could  not 
but  follow  —  on  words,  on  deeds,  on 
career,  on  creed.  The  "impressed 
forces"  did  their  vital  work.  He  be- 
came like  Him  Whom  he  habitually 
loved.  "So  we  all,"  he  writes,  "re- 
flecting as  a  mirror  the  glory  of  Christ, 
are  changed  into  the  same  image." 

Nothing  could  be  more  simple,  more 
intelligible,  more  natural,  more   super- 


1 86  THE    CHANGED    LIFE. 

natural.  It  is  an  analogy  from  an 
every-day  fact.  Since  we  are  what 
we  are  by  the  impacts  of  those  who 
surround  us,  those  who  surround 
themselves  with  the  highest  will  be 
those  who  change  into  the  highest. 
There  are  some  men  and  some  women 
in  whose  company  we  are  always  at 
our  best.  While  with  them  we  cannot 
think  mean  thoughts  or  speak  ungen- 
erous words.  Their  mere  presence 
is  elevation,  purification,  sanctity.  All 
the  best  stops  in  our  nature  are  drawn 
out  by  their  intercourse,  and  we  find  a 
music  in  our  souls  that  was  never  there 
before.  Suppose  even  that  influence  pro- 
longed through  a  month,  a  year,  a  life- 
time, and  what  could  not  life  become  ? 


THE    ALCHEMY    OF    INFLUENCE.        1 8/ 

Here,  even  on  the  common  plane  of 
life,  talking  our  language,  walking 
our  streets,  working  side  by  side,  are 
sanctifiers  of  souls;  here,  breathing 
through  common  clay,  is  Heaven ; 
here,  energies  charged  even  through  a 
temporal  medium  with  the  virtue  of 
regeneration.  H  to  live  with  men, 
diluted  to  the  millionth  degree  with 
the  virtue  of  the  Highest,  can  exalt  and 
purify  the  nature,  what  bounds  can 
be  set  to  the  influence  of  Christ  ? 
To  live  with  Socrates  —  with  unveiled 
face  —  must  have  made  one  wise  ;  with 
Aristides,  just.  Francis  of  Assisi  must 
have  made  one  gentle;  Savonarola, 
strong.  But  to  have  lived  with  Christ 
must  have  made  one  like  Christ;  that 
is  to  say,  A  Chnstian, 


1 88  THE    CHANGED    LIFE. 

As  a  matter  of  fact,  to  live  with 
Christ  did  produce  this  effect.  It  pro- 
duced it  in  the  case  of  Paul.  And 
during  Christ's  lifetime  the  experiment 
was  tried  in  an  even  more  startling 
form.  A  few  raw,  unspiritual,  unin- 
spiring men,  were  admitted  to  the  inner 
circle  of  His  friendship.  The  change 
began  at  once.  Day  by  day  we  can 
almost  see  the  first  disciple  grow. 
First  there  steals  over  them  the  faintest 
possible  adumbration  of  His  character, 
and  occasionally,  very  occasionally, 
they  do  a  thing  or  say  a  thing  that  they 
could  not  have  done  or  said  had  they 
not  been  living  there.  Slowly  the 
spell  of  His  Life  deepens.  Reach 
after  reach  of  their  nature  is  overtaken, 


THE    ALCHEMY   OF    INFLUENCE.       1 89 

thawed,  subjugated,  sanctified.  Their 
manner  softens,  their  words  become 
more  gentle,  their  conduct  more  un- 
selfish. As  swallows  who  have  found 
a  summer,  as  frozen  buds  the  spring, 
their  starved  humanity  bursts  into  a 
fuller  life.  '  They  do  not  know  how  it 
is,  but  they  are  different  men.  One 
day  they  find  themselves  like  their 
Master,  going  about  and  doing  good. 
To  themselves  it  is  unaccountable, 
but  they  cannot  do  otherwise.  They 
were  not  told  to  do  it,  it  came  to  them 
to  do  it.  But  the  people  who  watch 
them  know  well  how  to  account  for  it 
—  "They  have  been,"  they  whisper, 
**with  Jesus."  Already  even,  the 
mark  and  seal  of  His  character  is  upon 


IQO  THE    CHANGED    LIFE. 

them  —  "They  have  been  with  Jesus.'* 
Unparalleled  phenomenon,  that  these 
poor  fishermen  should  remind  other 
men  of  Christ!  Stupendous  victory 
and  mystery  of  regeneration  that  mor- 
tal men  should  suggest  to  the  world, 
God! 

There  is  something  almost  melting 
in  the  way  His  contemporaries,  and 
John  especially,  speak  of  the  influence 
of  Christ.  John  lived  himself  in 
daily  wonder  at  Him ;  he  was  over- 
powered, over-awed,  entranced,  trans- 
figured. To  his  mind  it  was  impossi- 
ble for  any  one  to  come  under  this 
influence  and  ever  be  the  same  again. 
"Whosoever  abideth  in  Him  sinneth 
not,"    he    said.     It   was    inconceivable 


THE    ALCHEMY    OF   INFLUENCE.       IQI 

that  he  should  sin,  as  inconceivable  as 
that  ice  should  live  in  a  burning  sun, 
or  darkness  coexist  with  noon.  If  any 
one  did  sin,  it  was  to  John  the  sim- 
ple proof  that  he  could  never  have  met 
Christ.  "Whosoever  sinneth,"  he  ex- 
claims, **  hath  not  seen  Hhn,  neither 
known  Him,''  Sin  was  abashed  in 
this  Presence.  Its  roots  withered. 
Its  sway  and  victory  w^ere  forever  at 
an  end. 

But  these  were  His  contemporaries. 
It  was  easy  for  them  to  be  influenced 
by  Him,  for  they  were  every  day  and 
all  the  day  together.  But  how  can 
we  mirror  that  which  we  have  never 
seen }  How  can  all  this  stupendous 
result  be    produced  by  a    Memory,  by 


192  THE    CHANGED    LIFE. 

the  scantiest  of  all  Biographies,  by 
One  who  lived  and  left  this  earth 
eighteen  hundred  years  ago  ?  How 
can  modern  men  to-day  make  Christ, 
the  absent  Christ,  their  most  constant 
companion  still  ?  The  answer  is  that 
Friendship  is  a  spiritual  thing.  It  is 
independent  of  Matter,  or  Space,  or 
Time.  That  which  I  love  in  my 
friend  is  not  that  which  I  see.  What 
influences  me  in  my  friend  is  not  his 
body  but  his  spirit.  It  would  have 
been  an  ineffable  experience  truly  to 
have  lived  at  that  time  — 

"I  think  when  I  read  the  sweet  story  of  old 
How  when  Jesus  was  here  among  men, 
He  took  little  children  like  lambs  to  his  fold, 
I  should  like  to  have  been  with  Him  then. 


THE  ALCHEMY  OF  INFLUEN'CE.   I93 

"I  wish  that  His  hand  had  been    laid   on   my 
head, 
That  His  arms  had  been  thrown  around  me, 
And  that  I  had  seen  His  kind  look  when  he  said, 
*  Let  the  little  ones  come  unto  me/" 


And  yet,  if  Christ  were  to  come  into 
the  world  again  few  of  us  probably 
would  ever  have  a  chance  of  seeing 
Him.  Millions  of  her  subjects,  in  this 
little  country,  have  never  seen  their 
own  Queen.  And  there  would  be 
millions  of  the  subjects  of  Christ  who 
could  never  get  within  speaking  dis- 
tance of  Him  if  He  were  here.  Our 
companionship  with  Him,  like  all  true 
companionship,  is  a  spiritual  com- 
munion. All  friendship,  all  love, 
human  and  Divine,  is  purely  spiritual. 


194  THE    CHANGED    LIFE. 

It  was  after  He  was  risen  that  He 
influenced  even  the  disciples  most. 
Hence  in  reflecting  the  character  of 
Christ,  it  is  no  real  obstacle  that  we 
may  never  have  been  in  visible  con- 
tact with  Himself. 

There  lived  once  a  young  girl  whose 
perfect  grace  of  character  was  the 
wonder  of  those  who  knew  her.  She 
wore  on  her  neck  a  gold  locket  which 
no  one  was  ever  allowed  to  open.  One 
day,  in  a  moment  of  unusual  confi- 
dence, one  of  her  companions  was 
allowed  to  touch  its  spring  and  learn 
its  secret.  She  saw  written  these 
words  — "  Whom  having  not  seen,  I 
love.''  That  was  the  secret  of  her 
beautiful  life.  She  had  been  changed 
into  the  Same  Image. 


THE    ALCHEMY    OF    INFLUENCE.        I95 

Now  this  is  not  imitation,  but  a 
much  deeper  thing.  Mark  this  dis- 
tinction. For  the  difference  in  the 
process,  as  well  as  in  the  result,  may 
be  as  great  as  that  between  a  photo- 
graph secured  by  the  infallible  pencil 
of  the  sun,  and  the  rude  outline  from 
a  school-boy's  chalk.  Imitation  is 
mechanical,  reflection  organic.  The 
one  is  occasional,  the  other  habitual. 
In  the  one  case,  man  comes  to  God 
and  imitates  Him  ;  in  the  other,  God 
comes  to  man  and  imprints  Himself 
upon  him.  It  is  quite  true  that  there 
is  an  imitation  of  Christ  which  amounts 
to  reflection.  But  Paul's  term  includes 
all  that  the  other  holds,  and  is  open  to 
no  mistake. 


196  THE    CHANGED    LIFE. 

**  Make  Christ  your  most  constant 
companion  "  —  this  is  what  it  practically 
means  for  us.  Be  more  under  His  in- 
fluence than  under  any  other  influence. 
Ten  minutes  spent  in  His  society  every 
day,  ay,  two  minutes  if  it  be  face  to 
face,  and  heart  to  heart,  will  make  the 
whole  day  different.  Every  character 
has  an  inward  spring,  let  Christ  be  it. 
Every  action  has  a  key-note,  let  Christ 
set  it.  Yesterday  you  got  a  certain 
letter.  You  sat  down  and  wrote  a  re- 
ply which  almost  scorched  the  paper. 
You  picked  the  cruellest  adjectives 
you  knew  and  sent  it  forth,  without  a 
pang,  to  do  its  ruthless  work.  You 
did  that  because  your  life  was  set  in 
the  wrong   key.      You  began  the  day 


THE  ALCHEMY  OF  INFLUENCE.   IQ/ 

with  the  mirror  placed  at  the  wrong 
angle.  To-morrow,  at  day-break,  turn 
it  towards  Him,  and  even  to  your 
enemy  the  fashion  of  your  counte- 
nance will  be  changed.  Whatever 
you  then  do,  one  thing  you  will  find 
you  could  not  do  —  you  could  not  write 
that  letter.  Your  first  impulse  may  be 
the  same,  your  judgment  may  be  un- 
changed, but  if  you  try  it  the  ink  will 
dry  on  your  pen,  and  you  will  rise 
from  your  desk  an  unavenged,  but 
a  greater  and  more  Christian,  man. 
Throughout  the  whole  day  your  ac- 
tions, down  to  the  last  detail,  will  do 
homage  to  that  early  vision.  Yester- 
day you  thought  mostly  about  your- 
self.     To-day  the  poor  will   meet  you, 


198  THE    CHANGED    LIFE. 

and  you  will  feed  them.  The  help- 
less, the  tempted,  the  sad,  will  throng 
about  you,  and  each  you  will  befriend. 
Where  were  all  these  people  yester- 
day ?  Where  they  are  to-day,  but  you 
did  not  see  them.  It  is  in  reflected 
light  that  the  poor  are  seen.  But  your 
soul  to-day  is  not  at  the  ordinary  angle. 
'*  Things  which  are  not  seen "  are 
visible.  For  a  few  short  hours  you 
live  the  Eternal  Life.  The  eternal 
life,  the  life  of  faith,  is  simply  the  life 
of  the  higher  vision.  Faith  is  an  atti- 
tude —  a  mirror  set  at  the  right  angle. 
When  to-morrow  is  over,  and  in  the 
evening  you  review  it,  you  will  won- 
der how  you  did  it.  You  will  not  be 
conscious  that  you  strove  for  anything, 


THE    ALCHEMY    OF    INFLUENCE.        IQQ 

or  imitated  anything,  or  crucified  any- 
thing. You  will  be  conscious  of 
Christ;  that  he  was  with  you,  that 
without  compulsion  you  were  yet  com- 
pelled, that  without  force,  or  noise,  or 
proclamation,  the  revolution  was  ac- 
complished. You  do  not  congratulate 
yourself  as  one  who  has  done  a  mighty 
deed,  or  achieved  a  personal  success, 
or  stored  up  a  fund  of  "Christian 
experience "  to  ensure  the  same  result 
again.  What  you  are  conscious  of  is 
**the  glory  of  the  Lord."  And  what 
the  world  is  conscious  of,  if  the  result 
be  a  true  one,  is  also  "  the  glory  of  the 
Lord."  In  looking  at  a  mirror  one 
does  not  see  the  mirror,  or  think  of  it, 
but   only   of    what   it   reflects.     For   a 


200  THE    CHANGED    LIFE. 

mirror  never  calls  attention  to  itself  — 
except  when  there  are  flaws  in  it. 

That  this  is  a  real  experience  and 
not  a  vision,  that  this  life  is  possible  to 
men,  is  being  lived  by  men  to-day, 
is  simple  biographical  fact.  From  a 
thousand  witnesses  I  cannot  forbear  to 
summon  one.  The  following  are  the 
words  of  one  of  the  highest  intellects 
this  age  has  known,  a  man  who  shared 
the  burdens  of  his  country  as  few  have 
done,  and  who,  not  in  the  shadow^s  of 
old  age,  but  in  the  high  noon  of  his 
success,  gave  this  confession  —  I  quote 
it  with  only  a  few  abridgments  —  to  the 
world : 

'*  I  want  to  speak  to-night  only  a 
little,  but  that  little  I  desire  to  speak  of 


THE    ALCHEMV    OF    INFLUENCE.       20I 

the  sacred  name  of  Christ,  who  is  my 
life,  my  inspiration,  my  hope,  and  my 
surety.  I  cannot  help  stopping  and 
looking  back  upon  the  past.  And  I 
wish,  as  if  I  had  never  done  it  before, 
to  bear  witness,  not  only  that  it  is  by 
the  grace  of  God,  but  that  it  is  by  the 
grace  of  God,  as  manifested  in  Christ 
Jesus,  that  I  am  what  I  am.  I  recog- 
nize the  sublimity  and  grandeur  of  the 
revelation  of  God  in  His  eternal  father- 
hood as  one  that  made  the  heavens, 
that  founded  the  earth,  and  that  regards 
all  the  tribes  of  the  earth,  compre- 
hending them  in  one  universal  mercy ; 
but  it  is  the  God  that  is  manifested 
in  Jesus  Christ,  revealed  by  His  life, 
made  known  by  the  inflections  of  His 


202  THE    CHANGED    LIFE. 

feelings,  by  His  discourse,  and  by  His 
deeds  —  it  is  that  God  that  I  desire  to 
confess  to-night,  and  of  whom  I  desire 
to  say,  'By  the  love  of  God  in  Christ 
Jesus  I  am  what  I  am.' 

"  If  you  ask  me  precisely  what  I 
mean  by  that,  I  say,  frankly,  that 
more  than  any  recognized  influence  of 
my  father  or  my  mother  upon  me ; 
more  than  the  social  influence  of  all 
the  members  of  my  father's  household, 
more,  so  far  as  I  can  trace  it,  or  so  far 
as  I  am  made  aware  of  it,  than  all  the 
social  influences  of  every  kind,  Christ 
has  had  the  formation  of  my  mind  and 
my  disposition.  My  hidden  ideals  of 
what  is  beautiful  I  have  drawn  from 
Christ.       My     thoughts     of     what     is 


THE  ALCHEMY  OF  INFLUENCE.   203 

manly,  and  noble,  and  pure,  have 
almost  all  of  them  arisen  from  the 
Lord  Jesus  Christ.  Many  men  have 
educated  themselves  by  reading  Plu- 
tarch's Lives  of  the  Ancient  Worthies, 
and  setting  before  themselves  one  and 
another  of  these  that  in  different  ages 
have  achieved  celebrity ;  and  they 
have  recognized  the  great  power  of 
these  men  on  themselves.  Now  I  do 
not  perceive  that  poet,  or  philosopher, 
or  reformer,  or  general,  or  any  other 
great  man,  ever  has  dwelt  in  my  imagi- 
nation and  in  my  thought  as  the  simple 
Jesus  has.  For  more  than  twenty-five 
years  I  instinctively  have  gone  to  Christ 
to  draw  a  measure  and  a  rule  for  every- 
thing.    Whenever     there     has   been  a 


204  THE    CHANGED    LIFE. 

necessity  for  it,  I  have  sought  —  and  at 
last  almost  spontaneously  —  to  throw 
myself  into  the  companionship  of 
Christ;  and  early,  by  my  imagination, 
I  could  see  Him  standing  and  looking 
quietly  and  lovingly  upon  me.  There 
seemed  almost  to  drop  from  His  face 
an  influence  upon  me  that  suggested 
what  was  the  right  thing  in  the  con- 
trolling of  passion,  in  the  subduing  of 
pride,  in  the  overcoming  of  selfishness ; 
and  it  is  from  Christ,  manifested  to  my 
inward  eye,  that  I  have  consciously 
derived  more  ideals,  more  models, 
more  influences,  than  any  other  human 
character  whatever. 

**That  is   not   all.     I    feel  conscious 
that    I    have    derived    from   the    Lord 


THE    ALCHEMY    OF    INFLUENCE.       205 

Jesus  Christ  every  thought  that 
makes  heaven  a  reality  to  me,  and 
every  thought  that  paves  the  road  that 
lies  between  me  and  heaven.  All  my 
conceptions  of  the  progress  of  grace 
in  the  soul ;  all  the  steps  by  which 
divine  life  is  evolved ;  all  the  ideals 
that  overhang  the  blessed  sphere  which 
awaits  us  beyond  this  world — these 
are  derived  from  the  Saviour.  The  life 
that  I  now  live  in  the  flesh  I  live  by 
the  faith  of  the  Son  of  God. 

**  That  is  not  all.  Much  as  my 
future  includes  all  these  elements 
which  go  to  make  the  blessed  fabric 
of  earthly  life,  yet,  after  all,  what  the 
summer  is  compared  with  all  its 
earthly  products  —  flowers,  and  leaves, 


206  THE    CHANGED  LIFE. 

and  grass  —  that  is  Christ  compared 
with  all  the  products  of  Christ  in 
my  mind  and  in  my  soul.  All 
the  flowers  and  leaves  of  sympa- 
thy ;  all  the  twining  joys  that  come 
from  my  heart  as  a  Christian  — 
these  I  take  and  hold  in  the  future, 
but  they  are  to  me  what  the  flowers 
and  leaves  of  summer  are  compared 
with  the  sun  that  makes  the  summer. 
Christ  is  the  Alpha  and  Omega,  the 
beginning  and  the  end  of  my  better 
life. 

''  When  T  read  the  Bible,  I  gather  a 
great  deal  from  the  Old  Testament, 
and  from  the  Pauline  portions  of  the 
New  Testament;  but  after  all,  I  am 
conscious   that   the  fruit   of   the    Bible 


THE    ALCHEMY   OF   INFLUENCE.       20/ 

is  Christ.  That  is  what  I  read  it  for, 
and  that  is  what  I  find  that  is  worth 
reading.  I  have  had  a  hunger  to  be 
loved  of  Christ.  You  all  know,  in 
some  relations,  what  it  is  to  be  hungry 
for  love.  Your  heart  seems  unsatisfied 
till  you  can  draw  something  more 
toward  you  from  those  that  are  dearest 
to  you.  There  have  been  times  when 
I  have  had  an  unspeakable  heart- 
hunger  for  Christ's  love.  My  sense 
of  sin  is  never  strong  when  I  think  of 
the  law ;  my  sense  of  sin  is  strong 
when  I  think  of  love  —  if  there  is  any 
difference  between  law  and  love.  It 
is  when  drawing  near  the  Lord  Jesus 
Christ,  and  longing  to  be  loved,  that  I 
have  the  most  vivid   sense    of   unsym- 


208  THE    CHANGED    LIFE. 

metry,  of  imperfection,  of  absolute 
unworthiness,  and  of  my  sinfulness. 
Character  and  conduct  are  never  so 
vividly  set  before  me  as  when  in 
silence  I  bend  in  the  presence  of 
Christ,  revealed  not  in  wrath,  but  in 
love  to  me.  I  never  so  much  long  to 
be  lovely,  that  I  may  be  loved,  as 
when  I  have  this  revelation  of  Christ 
before  my  mind. 

"  In  looking  back  upon  my  experi- 
ence, that  part  of  my  life  which  stands 
out,  and  which  I  remember  most 
vividly,  is  just  that  part  that  has  had 
some  conscious  association  with  Christ. 
All  the  rest  is  pale,  and  thin,  and  lies 
like  clouds  on  the  horizon.  Doctrines, 
systems,      measures,      methods  —  what 


THl<:    ALCHEMY    OF    INFLUENCK.       209 

may  bo  called  the  necessary  mechani- 
cal and  external  part  of  worship ;  the 
part  which  the  senses  would  recog- 
nize—  this  seems  to  have  withered  and 
fallen  off  like  leaves  of  last  summer; 
but  that  part  which  has  taken  hold  of 
Christ  abides." 

Can  any  one  hear  this  life-music, 
with  its  throbbing  refrain  of  Christ, 
and  remain  unmoved  by  envy  or 
desire?  Yet,  till  we  have  lived  like 
this  we  have  never  lived  at  all. 


2IO  THE    CHANGED    LIFE. 


THE   FIRST   EXPERIMENT. 


nPHEN  you  reduce  religion  to  a 
common  Friendship  ?  A  com- 
mon Friendship  —  who  talks  of  a  com- 
mon Friendship  ?  There  is  no  such 
thing  in  the  world.  On  earth  no  word 
is  more  sublime.  Friendship  is  the 
nearest  thing  we  know  to  what  religion 
is.  God  is  love.  And  to  make  reli- 
gion akin  to  Friendship  is  simply  to 
give  it  the  highest  expression  con- 
ceivable by  man.  But  if  by  demur- 
ring to  "  a  common  friendship  *'  is 
meant   a   protest   against   the   greatest 


THE    FIRST    EXPERIMENT.  211 

and  the  holiest  in  religion  being  spoken 
of  in  intelligible  terms,  then  I  am 
afraid  the  objection  is  all  too  real. 
Men  always  look  for  a  mystery  when 
one  talks  of  sanctification ;  some  mys- 
tery apart  from  that  which  must  ever 
be  mysterious  wherever  Spirit  works. 
It  is  thought  some  peculiar  secret 
lies  behind  it,  some  occult  experience 
which  only  the  initiated  know.  Thou- 
sands of  persons  go  to  church  every 
Sunday  hoping  to  solve  this  mystery. 
At  meetings,  at  conferences,  many  a 
time  they  have  reached  what  they 
thought  w^as  the  very  brink  of  it,  but 
somehow  no  further  revelation  came. 
Poring  over  religious  books,  how  often 
were   they  not  within  a  paragraph    of 


212  THE    CHANGED    LIFE. 

it;  the  next  page,  the  next  sentence, 
would  discover  all,  and  they  would  be 
borne  on  a  flowing  tide  forever.  But 
nothing  happened.  The  next  sentence 
and  the  next  page  were  read,  and 
still  it  eluded  them ;  and  though  the 
promise  of  its  coming  kept  faithfully 
up  to  the  end,  the  last  chapter  found 
them  still  pursuing.  Why  did  nothing 
happen  ?  Because  there  was  nothing 
to  happen  —  nothing  of  the  kind  they 
were  looking  for.  Why  did  it  elude 
them  .'^  Because  there  was  no  ^*it.'* 
When  shall  we  learn  that  the  pursuit 
of  holiness  is  simply  the  pursuit  of 
Christ  ?  When  shall  we  substitute  for 
the  *'  it "  of  a  fictitious  aspiration,  the 
approach  to  a   Living   Friend  ?     Sane- 


THK    FIRST    EXPERIMENT.  213 

tity  is  in  character  and  not  in  moods ; 
Divinity  in  our  own  plain  calm  human- 
ity, and  in  no  mystic  rapture  of  the 
soul. 

And  yet  there  are  others  who,  for 
exactly  a  contrary  reason,  will  find 
scant  satisfaction  here.  Their  com- 
plaint is  not  that  a  religion  expressed 
in  terms  of  Friendship  is  too  homely, 
but  that  it  is  still  too  mystical.  To 
"abide"  in  Christ,  to  "make  Christ 
our  most  constant  companion,"  is  to 
them  the  purest  mysticism.  They 
want  something  absolutely  tangible 
and  absolutely  direct.  *  These  are  not 
the  poetical  souls  w^ho  seek  a  sign,  a 
mysticism  in  excess ;  but  the  prosaic 
natures    whose    want    is   mathematical 


214  THE    CHANGED    LIFE. 

definition  in  details.  Yet  it  is  perhaps 
not  possible  to  reduce  this  problem 
to  much  more  rigid  elements.  The 
beauty  of  Friendship  is  its  infinity. 
One  can  never  evacuate  life  of  mysti- 
cism. Home  is  full  of  it,  love  is  full 
of  it,  religion  is  full  of  it.  Why 
stumble  at  that  in  the  relation  of  man 
to  Christ  which  is  natural  in  the  rela- 
tion of  man  to  man  ? 

If  any  one  cannot  conceive  or  real- 
ize a  mystical  relation  with  Christ,  per- 
haps all  that  can  be  done  is  to  help 
him  to  step  on  to  it  by  still  plainer 
analogies  from  tommon  life.  How  do 
I  know  Shakespeare  or  Dante.?  By 
communing  with  their  words  and 
thoughts.       Many    men    know    Dante 


THE    FIRST   EXPERIMENT.  21$ 

better  than  their  own  fathers.  He 
influences  them  more.  As  a  spiritual 
presence  he  is  more  near  to  them,  as 
a  spiritual  force  more  real.  Is  there 
any  reason  why  a  greater  than  Shake- 
speare or  Dante,  who  also  walked  this 
earth,  who  left  great  words  behind 
Him,  who  has  greater  works  every- 
where in  the  world  now,  should  not 
also  instruct,  inspire,  and  mould  the 
characters  of  men  ?  I  do  not  limit 
Christ's  influence  to  this.  It  is  this, 
and  it  is  more.  But  Christ,  so  far 
from  resenting  or  discouraging  this 
relation  of  Friendship,  Himself  pro- 
posed it.  "  Abide  in  me  "  was  almost 
His  last  w^ord  to  the  world.  And  He 
partly  met  the  difficulty  of  those  who 


2l6  THE    CHANGED    LIFE. 

feel  its  intangibleness  by  adding  the 
practical  clause,  "  If  ye  abide  in  Me 
and  My  words  abide  in  you ^ 

Begin  with  His  words.  Words  can 
scarcely  ever  be  long  impersonal. 
Christ  Himself  was  a  Word,  a  word 
made  Flesh.  Make  His  words  flesh ; 
do  them,  live  them,  and  you  must  live 
Christ.  ''He  that  keepeth  My  com- 
mandments, he  it  is  that  loveth  Me.'* 
Obey  Him  and  you  must  love  Him. 
Abide  in  Him  and  you  must  obey  Him. 
Cultivate  His  Friendship.  Live  after 
Christ,  in  His  Spirit,  as  in  His  Pres- 
ence, and  it  is  difficult  to  think  what 
more  you  can  do.  Take  this  at  least 
as  a  first  lesson,  as  introduction.  If 
you   cannot   at   once   and   always   feel 


THE    FIRST    EXPERIMENT.  21/ 

the  play  of  His  life  upon  yours,  watch 
for  it  also  indirectly.  "The  whole 
earth  is  full  of  the  character  of  the 
Lord."  Christ  is  the  Light  of  the 
world,  and  much  of  His  Light  is 
reflected  from  things  in  the  world  — 
even  from  clouds.  Sunlight  is  stored 
in  every  leaf,  from  leaf  through  coal, 
and  it  comforts  us  thence  when  days 
are  dark  and  we  cannot  see  the  sun. 
Christ  shines  through  men,  through 
books,  through  history,  through  nature, 
music,  art.  Look  for  Him  there. 
"  Every  day  one  should  either  look  at 
a  beautiful  picture,  or  hear  beautiful 
music,  or  read  a  beautiful  poem." 
The  real  danger  of  mysticism  is  not 
making  it  broad  enough. 


2lS  THE    CHANGED    LIFE. 

Do  not  think  that  nothing  is  happen- 
ing because  you  do  not  see  yourself 
grow,  or  hear  the  whir  of  the  ma- 
chinery.    All  great  things  grow  noise-  ^ 

I 
lessly.        You    can     see    a    mushroom 

grow,  but  never  a  child.  Mr.  Darwin 
tells  us  that  Evolution  proceeds  by 
"numerous,  successive,  and  slight 
modifications."  Paul  knew  that,  and 
put  it,  only  in  more  beautiful  words, 
into  the  heart  of  his  formula.  He 
said  for  the  comforting  of  all  slowly 
perfecting  souls  that  they  grew  '*from 
character  to  character."  "The  in- 
ward man,"  he  says  elsewhere,  "is 
renewed  from  day  to  day."  All 
thorough  work  is  slow;  all  true  devel- 
opment  by   minute,  slight,    and   insen- 


THE    FIRST    EXPERIMENT.  219 

sible  metamorphoses.  The  higher  the 
structure,  moreover,  the  slower  the 
progress.  As  the  biologist  runs  his 
eye  over  the  long  Ascent  of  Life  he 
sees  the  lowest  forms  of  animals  de- 
velop in  an  hour ;  the  next  above  these 
reach  maturity  in  a  day ;  those  higher 
still  take  weeks  or  months  to  perfect; 
but  the  few  at  the  top  demand  the  long 
experiment  of  years.  If  a  child  and 
an  ape  are  born  on  the  same  day,  the 
last  will  be  m  full  possession  of  its  fac- 
ulties and  doing  the  active  work  of 
life  before  the  child  has  left  its  cradle. 
Life  is  the  cradle  of  eternity.  As  the 
man  is  to  the  animal  in  the  slowness  of 
his  evolution,  so  is  the  spiritual  man  to 
the   natural    man.     Foundations  which 


220  THE    CHANGED    LIFE. 

have  to  bear  the  weight  of  an  eternal 
life  must  be  surely  laid.  Character  is 
to  wear  forever;  who  will  wonder  or 
grudge  that  it  cannot  be  developed  in 
a  day  ? 

To  await  the  growing  of  a  soul, 
nevertheless,  is  an  almost  Divine  act 
of  faith.  How  pardonable,  surely,  the 
impatience  of  deformity  with  itself, 
of  a  consciously  despicable  character 
standing  before  Christ,  wondering, 
yearning,  hungering  to  be  like  that! 
Yet  must  one  trust  the  process  fear- 
lessly, and  without  misgiving.  "The 
Lord  the  Spirit "  will  do  His  part. 
The  tempting  expedient  is,  in  haste 
for  abrupt  or  visible  progress,  to  try 
some  method  less  spiritual,  or  to  defeat 


THE    FIRST    EXPERIMENT.  221 

the  end  by  watching  for  effects  instead 
of  keeping  the  eye  on  the  Cause.  A 
photograph  prints  from  the  negative 
only  while  exposed  to  the  sun.  While 
the  artist  is  looking  to  see  how  it  is 
getting  on  he  simply  stops  the  getting 
on.  Whatever  of  wise  supervision  the 
soul  may  need,  it  is  certain  it  can 
never  be  over-exposed,  or  that,  being 
exposed,  anything  else  in  the  world 
can  improve  the  result  or  quicken  it. 
The  creation  of  a  new  heart,  the 
renewing  of  a  right  spirit,  is  an  om- 
nipotent work  of  God.  Leave  it  to  the 
Creator.  "  He  which  hath  begun  a 
good  work  in  you  will  perfect  it  unto 
that  day." 

No  man,  nevertheless,  who  feels  the 


222  THE    CHANGED    LIFE. 

worth  and  solemnity  of  what  is  at 
stake  will  be  careless  as  to  his  prog- 
ress. To  become  like  Christ  is  the 
only  thing  in  the  world  worth  caring 
for,  the  thing  before  which  every  am- 
bition of  man  is  folly,  and  all  lower 
achievement  vain.  Those  only  who 
make  this  quest  the  supreme  desire  and 
passion  of  their  lives  can  ever  begin  to 
hope  to  reach  it.  If,  therefore,  it  has 
seemed  up  to  this  point  as  if  all  de- 
pended on  passivity,  let  me  now  assert, 
with  conviction  more  intense,  that  all 
depends  on  activity.  A  religion  of 
effortless  adoration  may  be  a  religion 
for  an  angel,  but  never  for  a  man. 
Not  in  the  contemplative,  but  in  the 
active,  lies  true  hope ;   not  in  rapture, 


THE    FIRST    EXPERIMENT.  223 

but  in  reality,  lies  true  life  ;  not  in  the 
realm  of  ideals,  but  among  tangible 
things,  is  man's  sanctification  wrought. 
Resolution,  effort,  pain,  self-crucifixion, 
agony  —  all  the  things  already  dis- 
missed as  futile  in  themselves  must 
now  be  restored  to  office,  and  a  tenfold 
responsibility  laid  upon  them.  For 
what  is  their  office  ?  Nothing  less  than 
to  move  the  vast  inertia  of  the  soul^ 
and  place  it,  and  keep  it  where  the 
spiritual  forces  will  act  upon  it.  It  is 
to  rally  the  forces  of  the  will,  and 
keep  the  surface  of  the  mirror  bright 
and  ever  in  position.  It  is  to  uncover 
the  face  which  is  to  look  at  Christ,  and 
draw  down  the  veil  when  unhallowed 
sights    are  near.     You    have,   perhaps. 


224  THE    CHANGED    LIFE. 

gone  with  an  astronomer  to  watch  him 
photograph  the  spectrum  of  a  star. 
As  you  entered  the  dark  vault  of  the 
observatory  you  saw  him  begin  by 
lighting  a  candle.  To  see  the  star 
with  ?  No ;  but  to  see  to  adjust  the 
instrument  to  see  the  star  with.  It  was 
the  star  that  was  going  to  take  the  pho- 
tograph ;  it  was,  also,  the  astronomer. 
For  a  long  time  he  w^orked  in  the 
dimness,  screwing  tubes  and  polishing 
lenses  and  adjusting  reflectors,  and 
only  after  much  labor  the  finely 
focussed  instrument  was  brought  to 
bear.  Then  he  blew  out  the  light, 
and  left  the  star  to  do  its  work  upon 
the  plate  alone.  The  day's  task  for 
the  Christian  is  to  brino^  his  instrument 


THE    FIRST   EXPERIMENT.  22$ 

to  bear.  Having  done  that  he  may 
blow  out  his  candle.  All  the  evidences 
of  Christianity  which  have  brought 
him  there,  all  aids  to  Faith,  all  acts 
of  worship,  all  the  leverages  of  the 
Church,  all  Prayer  and  Meditation,  all 
girding  of  the  Will  —  these  lesser  proc- 
esses,  these  candle-light  activities  for 
that  supreme  hour,  may  be  set  aside. 
But,  remember,  it  is  but  for  an  hour. 
The  wise  man  will  be  he  who  quickest 
lights  his  candle ;  the  wisest  he  who 
never  lets  it  out.  To-morrow,  the 
next  moment,  he,  a  poor,  darkened, 
blurred  soul,  may  need  it  again  to 
focus  the  Image  better,  to  take  a 
mote  off  the  lens,  to  clear  the  mirror 
from  a  breath  with  which  the  world 
has  dulled  it. 


226  THE    CHANGED    LIFE. 

No  readjustment  is  ever  required  on 
behalf  of  the  Star.  That  is  one  great 
fixed  point  in  this  shifting  universe. 
But  the  world  moves.  And  each  day, 
each  hour,  demands  a  further  motion 
and  readjustment  for  the  soul.  A  tel- 
escope in  an  observatory  follows  a 
star  by  clockwork,  but  the  clockwork 
of  the  soul  is  called  the  WilL  Hence, 
while  the  soul  in  passivity  reflects  the 
Image  of  the  Lord,  the  Will  in  intense 
activity  holds  the  mirror  in  position 
lest  the  drifting  motion  of  the  world 
bear  it  beyond  the  line  of  vision.  To 
''follow  Christ"  is  largely  to  keep  the 
soul  in  such  position  as  will  allow  for 
the  motion  of  the  earth.  And  this 
calculated  counteracting  of   the   move- 


THE    FIRST    EXPERIMENT.  22/ 

ments  of  the  world,  this  holding  of  the 
mirror  exactly  opposite  to  the  Mirrored, 
this  steadying  of  the  faculties  unerr- 
ingly through  cloud  and  earthquake, 
fire  and  sword,  is  the  stupendous  co- 
operating labor  of  the  Will.  It  is  all 
man's  work.  It  is  all  Christ's  work. 
In  practice  it  is  both ;  in  theory  it  is 
both.  But  the  wise  man  will  say  in 
practice,  "  It  depends  upon  myself." 

In  the  Galerie  des  Beaux  Arts  in 
Paris  there  stands  a  famous  statue.  It 
was  the  last  work  of  a  great  genius, 
who,  like  many  a  genius,  was  very 
poor  and  lived  in  a  garret,  which 
served  as  a  studio  and  sleeping-room 
alike.  When  the  statue  was  all  but 
finished,  one  midnight  a  sudden  frost 


228  THE    CHANGED    LIFE. 

fell  upon  Paris.  The  sculptor  lay- 
awake  in  the  fireless  room  and  thought 
of  the  still  moist  clay,  thought  how  the 
water  would  freeze  in  the  pores  and 
destroy  in  an  hour  the  dream  of  his 
life.  So  the  old  man  rose  from  his 
couch  and  heaped  the  bed-clothes 
reverently  round  his  work.  In  the 
morning  when  the  neighbors  entered 
the  room  the  sculptor  was  dead.  But 
the  statue  lived. 

The  Image  of  Christ  that  is  forming 
within  us  —  that  is  life's  one  charge. 
Let  every  project  stand  aside  for  that. 
"'Till  Christ  be  formed,"  no  man's 
work  is  finished,  no  religion  crowned, 
no  life  has  fulfilled  its  end.  Is  the  in- 
finite  task   begun  ?      When,    how,    are 


THE    FIRST   EXPERIMENT.  229 

"we  to  be  different  ?  Time  cannot 
change  men.  Death  cannot  change 
men.  Christ  can.  Wherefore  put  on 
Christ. 


"FIRST!" 
A  TALK  WITH  BOYS. 


c.  FIRSTI'^ 

T    HAVE   three   heads    to    give   you. 
The  first  is  "  Geography,"  the  sec- 
ond is  **  Arithmetic,"  and  the  third  is 
'*  Grammar." 

Geography. 

First.  Geography  tells  us  where  to 
find  places.  Where  is  the  kingdom 
of  God  ?  It  is  said  that  when  a  Prus> 
sian  officer  was  killed  in  the  Franco- 
Prussian  war,  a  map  of  France  was 
very  often  found  in  his  pocket.     When 

233 


234  "first  ! 

we  wish  to  occupy  a  country,  we  ought 
to  know  its  geography.  Now,  where 
is  the  kingdom  of  God  ?  A  boy  over 
there  says,  **  It  is  in  heaven."  No,  it 
is  not  in  heaven.  Another  bqy  says, 
"It  is  in  the  Bible."  No;  it  is  not  in 
the  Bible.  Another  boy  says,  "It 
must  be  in  the  Church."  No;  it  is 
not  in  the  Church.  Heaven  is  only 
the  capital  of  the  kingdom  of  God  ;  the 
Bible  is  the  Guide-book  to  it ;  the 
Church  is  the  weekly  Parade  of  those 
who  belong  to  it.  If  you  would  turn 
to  the  seventeenth  chapter  of  St.  Luke 
you  will  find  out  where  the  kingdom  of 
God  really  is.  "  The  kingdom  of  God 
is  within  you  "  —  within  j^^//.  The  king- 
dom of  God  is  inside  people. 


GEOGRAPHY.  235 

I  remember  once  taking  a  walk  by 
the  river  near  where  the  Falls  of 
Niagara  are,  and  I  noticed  a  remark- 
able figure  walking  along  the  river 
bank.  I  •  had  been  some  time  in 
America.  I  had  seen  black  men,  and 
red  men,  and  yellow  men,  and  white 
men;  black  men,  the  Negroes;  red 
men,  the  Indians;,  yellow  men,  the 
Chinese;  white  men,  the  Americans. 
But  this  man  looked  different  in  his 
dress  from  anything  I  had  ever  seen. 
When  he  came  a  little  closer,  I  saw 
he  was  wearing  a  kilt ;  when  he  came 
a  little  nearer  still,  I  saw  that  he  was 
dressed  exactly  like  a  Highland  sol- 
dier. When  he  came  quite  near,  I 
said    to   him,    "What    are    you   doing 


236  "  FIRST  r' 

here  ? "  "  Why  should  I  not  be  here  ? " 
he  said.  '*  Don't  you  know  this  is 
British  soil  ?  When  you  cross  the 
river  you  come  into  Canada."  This 
soldier  was  thousands  of  ,  miles  from 
England,  and  yet  he  was  in  the  king- 
dom of  England.  Wherever  there  is 
an  English  heart  beating  loyal  to  the 
Queen  of  Britain,  there  is  England. 
Wherever  there  is  a  boy  whose  heart 
is  loyal  to  the  King  of  the  kingdom  of 
God,  the  kingdom  of  God  is  within 
him. 

What  is  the  kingdom  of  God  ? 
Every  kingdom  has  its  exports,  its 
products.  Go  down  to  the  river  here, 
and  you  will  find  ships  coming  in  with 
cotton;    you    know    they    come    from 


GEOGRAPHY.  2n 

America.  You  will  find  ships  with 
tea;  you  know  they  are  from  China. 
Ships  with  wool ;  you  know  they  come 
from  Australia.  Ships  with  sugar; 
you  know  they  come  from  Java. 
What  comes  from  the  kingdom  of  God } 
Again  we  must  refer  to  our  Guide- 
book. Turn  to  Romans,  and  we  shall 
find  what  the  kingdom  of  God  is.  I 
will  read  it :  "  The  kingdom  of  God  is 
righteousness,  peace,  joy  "  —  three 
things.  ''  The  kingdom  of  God  is 
righteousness,  peace,  joy."  Right- 
eousness, of  course,  is  just  doing  what 
is  right.  Any  boy  who  does  what  is 
right  has  the  kingdom  of  God  within 
him.  Any  boy  who,  instead  of  being 
quarrelsome,  lives  at  peace  with  other 


238  *'  FIRST  !  " 

boys,  has  the  kingdom  of  God  within 
him.  Any  boy  whose  heart  is  filled 
with  joy  because  he  does  what  is  right, 
has  the  kingdom  of  God  within  him. 
The  kingdom  of  God  is  not  going  to 
religious  meetings,  and  hearing  strange 
religious  experiences:  the  kingdom  of 
God  is  doing  what  is  right  —  living  at 
peace  with  all  men,  being  filled  with 
joy  in  the  Holy  Ghost. 

Boys,  if  you  are  going  to  be  Chris- 
tians, be  Christians  as  boys,  and  not 
as  your  grandmothers.  A  grand- 
mother has  to  be  a  Christian  as  a 
grandmother,  and  that  is  the  right  and 
the  beautiful  thing  for  her ;  but  if  you 
cannot  read  your  Bible  by  the  hour 
as   your   grandmother   can,    or   delight 


\i 

mrf 

flSfe 

^ft- 

"■■**••«(. 

fl 

Mi 

Mki 

-K 

GEOGRAPHY.  239 

in  meetings  as  she  can,  don't  think 
you  are  necessarily  a  bad  boy.  When 
you  are  your  grandmother's  age  you 
will  have  your  grandmother's  kind  of 
religion.  Meantime,  be  a  Christian 
as  a  boy.  Live  a  boy's  life.  Do  the 
straight  thing ;  seek  the  kingdom  of 
righteousness  and  honor  and  truth. 
Keep  the  peace  with  the  boys  about 
you,  and  be  filled  with  the  joy  of  being 
a  loyal,  and  simple,  and  natural,  and 
boy-like  servant  of  Christ. 

You  can  very  easily  tell  l  house,  or 
workshop,  or  an  office  where  the  king- 
dom of  God  is  7iot,  The  first  thing 
you  see  in  that  place  is  that  the 
*'  straight  thing "  is  not  always  done. 
Customers  do  not  get  fair  play.     You 


240  ''  FIRST  !  " 

are  in  danger  of  learning  to  cheat  and 
to  lie.  Better,  a  thousand  times,  to 
starve  than  to  stay  in  a  place  where 
you  cannot  do  what  is  right. 

Or,  when  you  go  into  your  workshop, 
you  find  everybody  sulky,  touchy,  and 
ill-tempered ;  everybody  at  dagger's 
drawn  with  everybody  else ;  some  of 
the  men  not  on  speaking  terms  with 
some  of  the  others,  and  the  whole  fee/ 
of  the  place  miserable  and  unhappy. 
The  kingdom  of  God  is  not  there,  for 
it  is  peace.  It  is  the  kingdom  of  the 
Devil  that  is  anger  and  wrath  and 
malice. 

If  you  want  to  get  the  kingdom  of 
God  into  your  workshop,  or  into  your 
home,  let  the  quarrelling   be   stopped. 


GEOGRAPHY.  24 1 

Live  in  peace  and  harmony  and  broth- 
erliness  with  every  one.  For  the 
kingdom  of  God  is  the  kingdom  of 
brothers.  It  is  a  great  society,  founded 
by  Jesus  Christ,  of  all  the  people  who 
try  to  be  like  Him,  and  live  to  make 
the  world  better  and  sweeter  and  hap- 
pier. Wherever  a  boy  is  trying  to 
do  that,  in  the  house  or  in  the  street, 
in  the  workshop  or  on  the  baseball 
field,  there  is  the  kingdom  of  God. 
And  every  boy,  however  small  or  ob- 
scure or  poor,  who  is  seeking  that,  is  a 
member  of  it.  You  see  now,  I  hope, 
what  the  kingdom  is. 

Arithmetic. 
I    pass,    therefore,    to     the    second 
head :    What  was    it  ?     **  Arithmetic." 


242  "  FIRST  !  " 

Are  there  any  arithmetic  words  in  this 
text?  "Added,"  says  one  boy.  Quite 
right,  added.  What  other  arithmetic 
word  ?  "  First."  Yes,  first  —  "  first," 
'*  added."  Now,  don't  you  think  you 
could  not  have  anything  better  to  seek 
"  first  "  than  the  things  I  have  named  — 
to  do  what  is  right,  to  live  at  peace, 
and  be  always  making  those  about 
you  happy }  You  see  at  once  why 
Christ  tells  us  to  seek  these  things 
first  —  because  they  are  the  best  worth 
seeking.  Do  you  know  anything 
better  than  these  three  things,  any- 
thing happier,  purer,  nobler }  If  you 
do,  seek  them  first.  But  if  you  do 
not,  seek  first  the  kingdom  of  God. 
I  am  not  here   this   afternoon   to  tell 


ARITHMETIC.  243 

you  to  be  religious.  You  know 
that.  I  am  not  here  to  tell  you 
to  seek  the  kingdom  of  God.  I  have 
come  to  tell  you  to  seek  the  kingdom 
of  God  first.  First.  Not  many  peo- 
ple do  that.  They  put  a  little  religion 
into  their  life  —  once  a  week,  perhaps. 
They  might  just  as  well  let  it  alone. 
It  is  not  worth  seeking  the  kingdom  of 
God  unless  we  seek  it  first.  Suppose 
you  take  the  helm  out  of  a  ship  and 
hang  it  over  the  bow,  and  send  that 
ship  to  sea,  will  it  ever  reach  the  other 
side }  Certainly  not.  It  will  drift 
about  anyhow.  Keep  religion  in  its 
place,  and  it  will  take  you  straight 
through  life,  and  straight  to  your 
Father   in   heaven   when   life   is    over. 


244  '*  first!" 

But  if  you  do  not  put  it  in  its  place, 
you  may  just  as  well  have  nothing  to 
do  with  it.  Religion  out  of  its  place 
in  a  human  life  is  the  most  miserable 
thing  in  the  world.  There  is  nothing 
that  requires  so  much  to  be  kept  in  its 
place  as  religion,  and  its  place  is  what  ? 
second.^  third  .^  '*  First."  Boys,  carry 
that  home  with  you  to-day — first  the 
kingdom  of  God.  Make  it  so  that  it 
will  be  natural  to  you  to  think  about 
that  the  very  first  thing. 

There  was  a  boy  in  Glasgow  ap- 
prenticed to  a  gentleman  who  made 
telegraphs.  The  gentleman  told  me 
this  himself.  One  day  this  boy  was 
up  on  the  top  of  a  four-story  house 
with    a   number   of    men    fixing   up    a 


ARITHMETIC.  245 

telegraph  wire.  The  work  was  all 
but  done.  It  was  getting  late,  and  the 
men  said  they  were  going  away  home, 
and  the  boy  was  to  nip  off  the  ends  of 
the  wire  himself.  Before  going  down 
they  told  him  to  be  sure  to  go  back  to 
the  workshop,  when  he  was  finished, 
with  his  master's  tools.  ''  Do  not 
leave  any  of  them  lying  about,  what- 
ever you  do,"  said  the  foreman.  The 
boy  climbed  up  the  pole  and  began  to 
nip  off  the  ends  of  the  wire.  It  was  a 
very  cold  winter  night,  and  the  dusk 
was  gathering.  He  lost  his  hold  and 
fell  upon  the  slates,  slid  down,  and  then 
over  and  over  to  the  ground  below. 
A  clothes-rope,  stretched  across  the 
**  green  "  on  to  which  he  was  just  about 


246  "  FIRST  !  " 

to  fall,  caught  him  on  the  chest  and 
broke  his  fall ;  but  the  shock  was  ter- 
rible, and  he  lay  unconscious  among 
some  clothes  upon  the  green.  An  old 
woman  came  out;  seeing  her  rope 
broken  and  the  clothes  all  soiled, 
thought  the  boy  was  drunk,  shook  him, 
scolded  him,  and  went  for  the  police- 
man. And  the  boy  with  the  shaking 
came  back  to  consciousness,  rubbed 
his  eyes,  and  got  upon  his  feet.  What 
do  you  think  he  did.**  He  staggered, 
half  blind,  away  up  the  stairs.  He 
climbed  the  ladder.  He  got  on  to  the 
roof  of  the  house.  He  -gathered  up 
his  tools,  put  them  into  his  basket, 
took  them  down,  and  when  he  got  to 
the    ground  again,  fainted  dead   away. 


ARITHMETIC.  24/ 

Just  then  the  policeman  came,  saw 
there  was  something  seriously  wrong, 
and  carried  him  away  to  the  hospital, 
where  he  lay  for  some  time.  I  am  glad 
to  say  he  got  better.  What  was  his 
first  thought  at  that  terrible  moment.^ 
His  duty.  He  was  not  thinking  of 
himself;  he  was  thinking  about  his 
master.  First,  the  kingdom  of  God. 
But  there  is  another  arithmetic  word. 
What  is  it.?  ''Added."  There  is  not 
one  boy  here  who  does  not  know  the 
difference  between  addition  and  sub- 
traction. Now,  that  is  a  very  impor- 
tant difference  in  religion,  because  — 
and  it  is  a  very  strange  thing  —  very 
few  people  know  the  difference  when 
they    begin    to     talk     about     religion. 


248  "  FIRST  !  " 

They  often  tell  boys  that  if  they  seek 
the  kingdom  of  God,  everything  else 
is  going  to  be  subtracted  from  them. 
They  tell  them  that  they  are  going 
to  become  gloomy,  miserable,  and  will 
lose  everything  that  makes  a  boy's 
life  worth  living  —  that  they  will  have 
to  stop  baseball  and  story-books,  and 
become  little  old  men,  and  spend  all 
their  time  in  going  to  meetings  and  in 
singing  hymns.  Now,  that  is  not  true, 
Christ  never  said  anything  like  that. 
Christ  says  we  are  to  "  seek  first  the 
kingdom  of  God,"  and  everything  else 
worth  having  is  to  be  added  imto 
us.  If  there  is  anything  I  would  like 
you  to  take  away  with  you  this  after- 
noon, it  is  these  two  arithmetic  words  — 


ARITHMETIC.  249 

"first"  and  "added."  I  do  not  mean 
by  added  that  if  you  become  religious 
you  are  all  going  to  become  rich. 
Here  is  a  boy,  who,  in  sweeping  out 
the  shop  to-morrow  morning,  finds 
sixpence  lying  among  the  orange- 
boxes.  Well,  nobody  has  missed  it. 
He  puts  it  in  his  pocket,  and  it  begins 
to  burn  a  hole  there.  By  breakfast- 
time  he  wishes  that  sixpence  were  in 
his  master's  pocket  And  by  and  by 
he  goes  to  his  master.  He  says  (to 
himself,  and  not  to  his  master,)  "  I 
was  at  the  Boys'  Brigade  yesterday, 
and  I  was  to  seekyfr^-/  that  which  was 
right."  Then  he  says  to  his  master, 
"  Please,  sir,  here  is  sixpence  that  I 
found    upon    the    floor."      The   master 


250  "  FIRST  ! 

puts  it  in  the  "till."  What  has  the 
boy  got  in  his  pocket?  Nothing;  but 
he  has  got  the  kingdom  of  God  in  his 
heart.  He  has  laid  up  treasure  in 
heaven,  which  is  of  infinitely  more 
worth  than  sixpence.  Now,  that  boy 
does  not  find  a  shilling  on  his  way 
home.  I  have  known  that  happen, 
but  that  is  not  what  is  meant  by  '*  add- 
ing." It  does  not  mean  that  God  is 
going  to  pay  him  in  his  own  coin,  for 
He  pays  in  better  coin. 

Yet  I  remember  once  hearing  of  a 
boy  who  was  paid  in  both  ways.  He 
was  very,  very  poor.  He  lived  in  a 
foreign  country,  and  his  mother  said  to 
him  one  day  that  he  must  go  into  the 
great  city  and  start  in  business,  and  she 


ARITHMETIC.  2$! 

took  his  coat  and  cut  it  open  and 
sewed  between  the  lining  and  the  coat 
forty  golden  dinars,  which  she  had 
saved  up  for  many  years  to  start  him 
in  life.  She  told  him  to  take  care  of 
robbers  as  he  went  across  the  desert; 
and  as  he  was  going  out  of  the  door 
she  said :  "  My  boy,  I  have  only  two 
words  for  you  —  *  Fear  God,  and  never 
tell  a  lie.'  "  The  boy  started  off,  and 
toward  evening  he  saw  glittering  in 
the  distance  the  minarets  of  the  great 
city,  but  between  the  city  and  himself 
he  saw  a  cloud  of  dust,  it  came  nearer ; 
presently  he  saw  that  it  was  a  band  of 
robbers.  One  of  the  robbers  left  the 
rest  and  rode  toward  him,  and  said: 
"  Boy,  what  have  you  got  ?  *'     And  the 


252  ''first!" 

boy  looked  him  in  the  face  and  said : 
"  I  have  forty  golden  dinars  sewed  up 
in  my  coat."  And  the  robber  laughed 
and  wheeled  round  his  horse  and  rode 
away  back.  He  would  not  believe  the 
boy.  Presently  another  robber  came, 
and  he  said :  "  Boy,  what  have  you 
got  ?''  ''  Forty  golden  dinars  sewed  up 
in  my  coat."  The  robber  said:  *' The 
boy  is  a  fool,"  and  wheeled  his  horse 
and  rode  away  back.  By  and  by  the 
robber  captain  came,  and  he  said : 
**  Boy,  what  have  you  got.*^"  *'  I  have 
forty  golden  dinars  sewed  up  in  my 
coat."  And  the  robber  dismounted 
and  put  his  hand  over  the  boy's  breast, 
felt  something  round,  counted  one, 
two,  three,  four,   five,   till   he   counted 


ARITHMETIC.  253 

out  the  forty  golden  coin.  He  looked 
the  boy  in  the  face,  and  said :  "  Why 
did  you  tell  me  that  ?  "  The  boy  said  : 
*'  Because  of  God  and  my  mother." 
And  the  robber  leaned  on  his  spear 
and  thought,  and  said :  "  Wait  a 
moment."  He  mounted  his  horse, 
rode  back  to  the  rest  of  the  robbers, 
and  came  back  in  about  five  minutes 
with  his  dress  changed.  This  time 
he  looked  not  like  a  robber,  but  like  a 
merchant.  He  took  the  boy  up  on  his 
horse  and  said :  **  My  boy,  I  have 
long  wanted  to  do  something  for  my 
God  and  for  my  mother,  and  I  have 
this  moment  renounced  my  robber's 
life.  I  am  also  a  merchant.  I  have 
a    large    business    house    in    the    city. 


254  "first!" 

I  want  you  to  come  and  live  with 
me,  to  teach  me  about  your  God ;  and 
you  will  be  rich,  and  your  mother 
some  day  will  come  and  live  with  us.'' 
And  it  all  happened.  By  seeking  first 
the  kingdom  of  God,  all  these  things 
were  added  unto  him. 

Boys,  banish  for  ever  from  your 
minds  the  idea  that  religion  is  siibtrac- 
tio7i.  It  does  not  tell  us  to  give  things 
up,  but  rather  gives  us  something  so 
much  better  that  they  give  themselves 
up.  When  you  see  a  boy  on  the 
street  whipping  a  top,  you  know,  per- 
haps, that  you  could  not  make  that 
boy  happier  than  by  giving  him  a  top, 
a  whip,  and  half  an  hour  to  whip  it. 
But  next  birthday,  when  he  looks  back, 


ARITHMETIC.  255 

he  says,  "What  a  goose  I  was  last 
year  to  be  delighted  with  a  top ;  what 
I  want  now  is  a  baseball  bat."  Then 
when  he  becomes  an  old  man  he  does 
not  care  in  the  least  for  a  baseball  bat ; 
he  wants  rest,  and  a  snug  fireside,  and 
a  newspaper  every  day.  He  wonders 
how  he  could  ever  have  taken  up  his 
thoughts  with  baseball  bats  and  whip- 
ping tops.  Now,  when  a  boy  becomes 
a  Christian,  he  grows  out  of  the  evil 
things  one  by  one  —  that  is  to  say,  if 
they  are  really  evil  —  which  he  used  to 
set  his  heart  upon  (of  course  I  do  not 
mean  baseball  bats,  for  they  are  not 
evils);  and  so  instead  of  telling  people 
to  give  up  things,  we  are  safer  to  tell 
them   to    ''seek   first   the   kingdom   of 


256  "  FIRST  !  " 

God,"  and  then  they  will  get  new. 
things  and  better  things,  and  the  old 
things  will  drop  off  of  themselves. 
This  is  what  is  meant  by  the  "new 
heart."  It  means  that  God  puts  into 
us  new  thoughts  and  new  wishes,  and 
we  become  quite  different  boys. 

Grammar. 

Lastly,  and  very  shortly.  What 
was  the  third  head.'*  "Grammar." 
Right :  Grammar.  Now,  I  require  a 
clever  boy  to  answer  the  next  question. 
What  is  the  verb.?  "Seek."  Very 
g^ood:  "Seek."  What  mood  is  it  in.? 
"Imperative  mood."  What  does  that 
mean.?  "Command."  You  boys  of 
the    Boys'    Brigade    know   what   com- 


GRAMMAR.  2$/ 

mands  are.  What  is  the  soldier's  first 
lesson  ?  ''  Obedience.'*  Have  you 
obeyed  this  command  ?  Remember 
the  imperative  mood  of  these  words, 
"  See^  first  the  kingdom  of  God." 
This  is  the  command  of  your  King. 
It  must  be  done.  I  have  been  trying 
to  show  you  what  a  splendid  thing  it 
is ;  what  a  reasonable  thing  it  is ;  what 
a  happy  thing  it  is;  but  beyond 
all  these  reasons  it  is  a  thing  that 
m?ist  be  done,  because  we  are  com- 
manded  to  do  it  by  our  Captain.  It  is 
one  of  the  finest  things  about  the  Boys* 
Brigade  that  it  always  appeals  to 
Christ  as  its  highest  officer,  and  takes 
its  commands  from  Him.  Now,  there 
is  His  command  to  seek  first  the  king- 


258  "first  : 

dom  of  God.  Have  you  done  it  ? 
"Well,"  I  know  some  boys  will  say, 
"  we  are  going  to  have  a  good  time, 
enjoy  life,  and  then  we  are  going  to 
seek  —  last  —  the  kingdom  of  God." 
Now  that  is  mean ;  it  is  nothing  else 
than  mean  for  a  boy  to  take  all  the 
good  gifts  that  God  has  given  him, 
and  then  give  Him  nothing  back  in 
return  but  his  wasted  life. 

God  wants  boys'  lives^  not  only  their 
souls.  It  is  for  active  service  soldiers 
are  drilled  and  trained  and  fed  and 
armed.  That  is  why  you  and  I  are 
in  the  world  at  all  —  not  to  prepare  to 
go  out  of  it  some  day ;  but  to  serve 
God  actively  in  it  7tow,  It  is  mon* 
strous   and   shameful   and  cowardly  to 


GRAMMAR.  259 

talk  of  seeking  the  kingdom  last.  It 
is  shirking  duty,  abandoning  one's 
rightful  post,  playing  into  the  enemy's 
hand  by  doing  nothing  to  turn  his 
flank.  Every  hour  a  kingdom  is  com- 
ing in  your  heart,  in  your  home,  in  the 
world  near  you,  be  it  a  kingdom  of 
darkness  or  a  kingdom  of  light.  You 
are  placed  where  you  are,  in  a  partic- 
ular business,  in  a  particular  street,  to 
help  on  there  the  kingdom  of  God. 
You  cannot  do  that  when  you  are  old 
and  ready  to  die.  By  that  time  your 
companions  will  have  fought  their 
fight,  and  lost  or  won.  If  they  lose, 
will  you  not  be  sorry  that  you  did  not 
help  them  t  Will  you  not  regret  that 
only  at  the   last  you   helped  the  king- 


260  "  FIRST  !  " 

dom  of  God  ?  Perhaps  you  will  not 
be  able  to  do  it  then.  And  then  your 
life  has  been  lost  indeed. 

Very  few  people  have  the  opportu- 
nity to  seek  the  kingdom  of  God  at 
the  end.  Christ,  knowing  all  that, 
knowing  that  religion  was  a  thing  for 
our  life,  not  merely  for  our  death-bed, 
has  laid  this  command  upon  us  now: 
"S&ek  Jirst  the  kingdom  of  God."  I 
am  going  to  leave  you  with  this  text 
itself.  Every  Brigade  boy  in  the 
world  should  obey  it. 

Boys,  before  you  go  to  work  to- 
morrow, before  you  go  to  sleep  to-night, 
before  you  go  to  the  Sunday-school 
this  afternoon,  before  you  go  out  of  the 
door    of    the  City   Hall,  resolve    that, 


GRAMMAR.  261 

God  helping  you,  you  are  going  to 
seek  first  the  kingdom  of  God.  Per- 
haps some  boys  here  are  deserters; 
they  began  once  before  to  serve  Christ, 
and  they  deserted.  Come  back  again, 
come  back  again  to-day.  Others  have 
never  enlisted  at  all.  Will  you  not  do 
it  now  t  You  are  old  enough  to  de- 
cide. And  the  grandest  moment  of  a 
boy's  life  is  that  moment  when  he 
decides  to 

Seefe  first  tl)e  feinsliom  of  ffioli^ 


HOW  TO   LEARN   HOW. 

I.    DEALING    WITH    DOUBT. 
11.    PREPARATION    FOR    LEARNING. 


DEALING  WITH  DOUBT. 


'T'HERE  is  a  subject  which  I  think 
^  we  as  workers  amongst  young 
men  cannot  afford  to  keep  out  of 
sight —  I  mean  the  subject  of  "  Doubt." 
We  are  forced  to  face  that  subject. 
We  have  no  choice.  I  would  rather 
let  it  alone;  but  every  day  of  my  life 
I  meet  men  who  doubt,  and  I  am 
quite  sure  that  most  of  you  have 
innumerable  interviews  every  year  with 
men  who  raise  skeptical  difficulties 
about  religion.  Now,  it  becomes  a 
matter  of    great    practical   importance 

265 


266  DEALING    WITH    DOUBT. 

that  we  should  know  how  to  deal 
wisely  with  these  men.  Upon  the 
whole,  I  think  these  are  the  best  men 
in  the  country.  I  speak  of  my  own 
country.  I  speak  of  the  universities 
with  which  I  am  familiar,  and  I  say 
that  the  men  who  are  perplexed  —  the 
men  who  come  to  you  with  serious 
and  honest  difficulties  —  are  the  best 
men.  They  are  men  of  intellectual 
honesty,  and  cannot  allow  themselves 
to  be  put  to  rest  by  words,  or  phrases, 
or  traditions,  or  theologies,  but  who 
must  get  to  the  bottom  of  things  for 
themselves.  And  if  I  am  not  mis- 
taken, Christ  was  very  fond  of  these 
men.  The  outsiders  always  interested 
Him,    and   touched    Him.     The    ortho- 


DEALING    WITH    DOUBT.  26/ 

dox  people  —  the  Pharisees  —  He  was 
much  less  interested  in.  He  went  with 
publicans  and  sinners  —  with  people 
who  were  in  revolt  against  the  respect- 
ability, intellectual  and  religious,  of 
the  day.  And  following  Him,  we  are 
entitled  to  give  sympathetic  considera- 
tion to  those  whom  He  loved  and  took 
trouble  with. 

First,  let  me  speak  for  a  moment  or 
two  about  the  origin  of  doubt.  In  the 
first  place,  we  are  born  questioners. 
Look  at  the  wonderment  of  a  little 
child  in  its  eyes  before  it  can  speak. 
The  child's  great  word  when  it  begins 
to  speak  is,  "  Why  } ''  Every  child  is 
full  of  every  kind  of  questions,  about 
every  kind  of  thing   that   moves,    and 


268  DEALING    WITH    DOUBT. 

shines,  and  changes,  in  the  little  world 
in  which  it  lives.  That  is  the  in- 
cipient doubt  in  the  nature  of  man. 
Respect  doubt  for  its  origin.  It  is  an 
inevitable  thing.  It  is  not  a  thing  to 
be  crushed.  It  is  a  part  of  man  as 
God  made  him.  Heresy  is  truth  in 
the  making,  and  doubt  is  the  prelude 
of  knowledge. 

Secondly :  The  world  is  a  Sphinx. 
It  is  a  vast  riddle  —  an  unfathomable 
mystery ;  and  on  every  side  there  is 
temptation  to  questioning.  In  every 
leaf,  in  every  cell  of  every  leaf,  there 
are  a  hundred  problems.  There  are 
ten  good  years  of  a  man's  life  in 
investigating  what  is  in  the  leaf,  and 
there    are    five    good    years    more    in 


DEALING    WITH    DOUBT.  269 

investigating  the  things  that  are  in  the 
things  that  are  in  the  leaf.  God  has 
planned  the  world  to  incite  men  to 
intellectual  activity. 

Thirdly :  The  instrument  with  which 
we  attempt  to  investigate  truth  is  im- 
paired. Some  say  it  fell,  and  the 
glass  is  broken.  Some  say  prejudice, 
heredity  or  sin,  have  spoiled  its  sight, 
and  have  blinded  our  eyes  and  dead- 
ened our  ears.  In  any  case  the  In- 
struments with  which  we  work  upon 
truth,  even  in  the  strongest  men,  are 
feeble  and  inadequate  to  their  tremen- 
dous task. 

And  in  the  fourth  place,  all  reli- 
gious truths  are  doubtable.  There  is 
no  absolute  proof  for  any  one  of  them. 


270  DEALING    WITH    DOUBT, 

Even  that  fundamental  truth  —  the 
existence  of  a  God  —  no  man  can  prove 
by  reason.  The  ordinary  proof  for 
the  existence  of  God  involves  either 
an  assumption,  argument  in  a  circle, 
or  a  contradiction.  The  impression 
of  God  is  kept  up  by  experience ;  not 
by  logic.  And  hence,  when  the  ex- 
perimental religion  of  a  man,  of  a 
community,  or  of  a  nation,  wanes, 
religion  wanes  —  their  idea  of  God 
grows  indistinct,  and  that  man,  com- 
munity or  nation  becomes  infidel. 
Bear  in  mind,  then,  that  all  religious 
truths  are  doubtable  —  even  those 
which  we  hold  most  strongly. 

What  does  this  brief  account  of  the 
origin  of  doubt  teach  us  ?     It  teaches  us 


DEALING  WITH  DOUBT.      2/1 

great  intellectual  humility.  It  teaches 
us  sympathy  and  toleration  with  all  men 
who  venture  upon  the  ocean  of  truth 
to  find  out  a  path  through  it  for  them- 
selves. Do  you  sometimes  feel  your- 
self thinking  unkind  things  about  your 
fellow-students  who  have  intellectual 
difficulty  ?  I  know  how  hard  it  is 
always  to  feel  sympathy  and  toleration 
for  them ;  but  we  must  address  our- 
selves to  that  most  carefully  and  most 
religiously.  If  my  brother  is  short- 
sighted, I  must  not  abuse  him  or  speak 
against  him  ;  I  must  pity  him,  and  if 
possible  try  to  improve  his  sight  or  to 
make  things  that  he  is  to  look  at  so 
bright  that  he  cannot  help  seeing. 
Btt  never  let  us  think  evil  of  men  who 


2/2      DEALING  WITH  DOUBT. 

do  not  see  as  we  do.  From  the  bot- 
tom of  our  hearts  let  us  pity  them,  and 
let  us  take  them  by  the  hand  and  spend 
time  and  thought  over  them,  and  try 
to  lead  them  to  the  true  light. 

What  has  been  the  Church's  treat- 
ment of  doubt  in  the  past?  It  has 
been  very  simple.  "  There  is  a  heretic. 
Burn  him  !  "  That  is  all.  "  There  is 
a  man  who  has  gone  off  the  road. 
Bring  him  back  and  torture  him !  " 
We  have  got  past  that  physically; 
have  we  got  past  it  morally  ?  What 
does  the  modern  Church  say  to  a  man 
who  is  skeptical  ?  Not  "  Burn  him  ! '' 
but  "  Brand  him  !  "  ''  Brand  him !  — 
call  him  a  bad  name."  And  in  many 
xtountries   at   the   present   time  a  man 


DEALING    WITH    DOUBT.  2/3 

who  is  branded  as  a  heretic  is  despised, 
tabooed,  and  put  out  of  religious  so- 
ciety, much  more  than  if  he  had  gone 
wrong  in  morals.  I  think  I  am  speak- 
ing within  the  facts  when  I  say  that  a 
man  who  is  unsound  is  looked  upon  in 
many  communities  with  more  suspicion 
and  with  more  pious  horror  than  a  man 
who  now  and  then  gets  drunk.  "  Burn 
him!"  "Brand  him!'*  "  Excommu- 
nicate  him ! "  That  has  been  the 
Church's  treatment  of  doubt,  and  that 
is  perhaps  to  some  extent  the  treatment 
which  we  ourselves  are  inclined  to  give 
to  the  men  who  cannot  see  the  truths 
of  Christianity  as  we  see  them.  Con- 
trast Christ's  treatment  of  doubt.  I 
have   spoken   already    of    His   strange 


2/4  DEALING    WITH    DOUBT. 

partiality  for  the  outsiders  —  for  the 
scattered  heretics  up  and  down  the 
country ;  of  the  care  with  which  He  , 
loved  to  deal  with  them,  and  of  the 
respect  in  which  He  held  their  intellec- 
tual difficulties.  Christ  never  failed  to 
distinguish  between  doubt  and  unbe- 
lief. Doubt  is  ca7i't  believe ;  unbelief 
is  won't  believe.  Doubt  is  honesty ; 
unbelief  is  obstinacy.  Doubt  is  look- 
ing for  light;  unbelief  is  content  with 
darkness.  Loving  darkness  rather 
than  light  —  that  is  what  Christ  at- 
tacked, and  attacked  unsparingly. 
But  for  the  intellectual  questioning  of 
Thomas,  and  Philip,  and  Nicodemus, 
and  the  many  others  who  came  to  Him 
to  have  their  great    problems  solved. 


DEALING  WITH  DOUBT.      275 

He  was   respectful   and   generous   and 
tolerant. 

And  how  did  He  meet  their  doubts  ? 
The  Church,  as  I  have  said,  says, 
"Brand  him!"  Christ  said,  ** Teach 
him/'  He  destroyed  by  fulfilling. 
When  Thomas  came  to  Him  and  de- 
nied His  very  resurrection,  and  stood 
before  Him  waiting  for  the  scathing 
words  and  lashing  for  his  unbelief,  they 
never  came.  They  never  came.  Christ 
gave  him  facts  —  facts.  No  man  can 
go  around  facts.  Christ  said,  "  Behold 
My  hands  and  My  feet."  The  great 
god  of  science  at  the  present  time  is  a 
fact.  It  works  with  facts.  Its  cry  is, 
"  Give  me  facts."  Found  anything 
you  like  upon  facts  and  we  will  believe 


2y6  DEALING  WITH  DOUBT. 

it.  The  spirit  of  Christ  was  the  scien- 
tific spirit.  He  founded  His  religion 
upon  facts ;  and  He  asked  all  men  to 
found  their  religion  upon  facts.  Now, 
gentlemen,  get  up  the  facts  of  Chris- 
tianity, and  take  men  to  the  facts. 
Theologies  —  and  I  am  not  speaking 
disrespectfully  of  theology;  theology 
is  as  scientific  a  thing  as  any  other 
science  of  facts  —  but  theologies  are 
human  versions  of  Divine  truths,  and 
hence  the  varieties  of  the  versions, 
and  the  inconsistencies  of  them.  I 
would  allow  a  man  to  select  whichever 
version  of  this  truth  he  liked  after- 
wards ;  but  I  would  ask  him  to  begin 
with  no  version,  but  go  back  to  the 
facts  and  base  his   Christian  life  upon 


DEALING    WITH    DOUBT.  2// 

that.  That  is  the  great  lesson  of  the 
New  Testament  way  of  looking  at 
doubt  —  of  Christ's  treatment  of  doubt. 
It  is  not  "  Brand  him  !  "  —  but  lovingly, 
wisely,  and  tenderly  to  teach  him. 
Faith  is  never  opposed  to  reason  in  the 
New  Testament ;  it  is  opposed  to  sight. 
You  will  find  that  a  principle  worth 
thinking  over.  Faith  is  never  opposed 
to  reason  in  the  New  Testamenty  but  to 
sight. 

Well,  now ;  with  these  principles  in 
mind  as  to  the  origin  of  doubt,  and  as 
to  Christ's  treatment  of  it,  how  are  we 
ourselves  to  deal  with  our  fellow- 
students  who  are  in  intellectual  diffi- 
culty }  In  the  first  place,  I  think 
we  must  make  all  the   concessions   to 


2/8  DEALING    WITH    DOUBT. 

them  that  we  conscientiously  can. 
When  a  doubter  first  encounters  you 
he  pours  out  a  deluge  of  abuse  of 
churches,  and  ministers,  and  creeds, 
and  Christians.  Nine-tenths  of  what 
he  says  is  probably  true.  Make  con- 
cessions. Agree  with  him.  It  does 
him  good  to  unburden  himself  of  these 
things.  He  has  been  cherishing  them 
for  years  —  laying  them  up  against 
Christians,  against  the  Church,  and 
against  Christianity ;  and  now  he  is 
startled  to  find  the  first  Christian  with 
whom  he  has  talked  over  the  thing 
almost  entirely  agrees  with  him.  We 
are,  of  course,  not  responsible  for 
everything  that  is  said  in  the  name  of 
Christianity  ;  but  a  man  does  not  give 


DEALING  WITH  DOUBT.      2/9 

up  medicine  because  there  are  quack 
doctors,  and  no  man  has  a  right  to 
give  up  his  Christianity  because  there 
are  spurious  or  inconsistent  Christians. 
Then,  as  I  have  already  said,  creeds 
are  human  versions  of  Divine  truths ; 
and  we  do  not  ask  a  man  to  accept  all 
the  creeds,  any  more  than  we  ask  him 
to  accept  all  the  Christians.  We  ask 
him  to  accept  Christ,  and  the  facts 
about  Christ,  and  the  words  of  Christ. 
But  you  will  find  the  battle  is  half 
won  when  you  have  endorsed  the  man's 
objections,  and  possibly  added  a  great 
many  more  to  the  charges  which  he 
has  against  ourselves.  These  men  are 
in  revolt  against  the  kind  of  religion 
which     we     exhibit     to    the     world  — 


280  DEALING    WITH    DOUBT. 

against  the  cant  that  is  taught  in  the 
name  of  Christianity.  And  if  the  men 
that  have  never  seen  the  real  thing 
—  if  you  could  show  them  that,  they 
would  receive  it  as  eagerly  as  you  do. 
They  are  merely  in  revolt  against  the 
imperfections  and  inconsistencies  of 
those  who  represent  Christ  to  the 
world. 

Second :  Beg  them  to  set  aside,  by 
an  act  of  will,  all  unsolved  problems  : 
such  as  the  problem  of  the  origin  of 
evil,  the  problem  of  the  Trinity,  the 
problem  of  the  relation  of  human  will 
and  predestination,  and  so  on  —  prob- 
lems which  have  been  investigated  for 
thousands  of  years  without  result  —  ask 
them  to    set   those    problems    aside   as 


DEALING    WITH    DOUBT.  28 1 

insoluble  in  the  meantime,  just  as  a 
man  who  is  studying  mathematics  may- 
be asked  to  set  aside  the  problem  of 
squaring  the  circle.  Let  him  go  on 
with  what  can  be  done,  and  what  has 
been  done,  and  leave  out  of  sight  the 
impossible.  You  will  find  that  will 
relieve  the  skeptic's  mind  of  a  great 
deal'  of  unnecessary  cargo  that  has  been 
in  his  way. 

Thirdly :  Talking  about  difficulties, 
as  a  rule,  only  aggravates  them.  En- 
tire satisfaction  to  the  intellect  is  un- 
attainable about  any  of  the  greater 
problems,  and  if  you  try  to  get  to  the 
bottom  of  them  by  argument,  there  is 
no  bottom  there ;  and,  therefore,  you 
make  the  matter  worse.     But   I   would 


282      DEALING  WITH  DOUBT. 

say  what  is  known,  and  what  can  be 
honestly  and  philosophically  and  scien- 
tifically said  about  one  or  two  of  the 
difficulties  that  the  doubter  raises,  just 
to  show  him  that  you  can  do  it  —  to 
show  him  that  you  are  not  a  fool  —  that 
you  are  not  merely  groping  in  the  dark 
yourself,  but  you  have  found  whatever 
basis  is  possible.  But  I  would  not  go 
around  all  the  doctrines.  I  would 
simply  do  that  with  one  or  two  ;  be- 
cause the  moment  you  cut  off  one,  a 
hundred  other  heads  will  grow  in  its 
place.  It  would  be  a  pity  if  all  these 
problems  could  be  solved.  The  joy  of 
the  intellectual  life  would  be  largely 
gone.  I  would  not  rob  a  man  of  his 
problems,    nor   would    I    have    another 


DEALING    WITH    DOUBT.  283 

man  rob  me  of  my  problems.  They 
are  the  delight  of  life,  and  the  whole 
intellectual  world  would  be  stale  and 
unprofitable  if  we  knew  everything. 

Fourthly  —  and  this  is  the  great  point : 
Turn  away  from  the  reason,  and  go 
into  the  man's  moral  life.  I  don't 
mean,  go  into  his  moral  life  and  see 
if  the  man  is  living  in  conscious  sin, 
which  is  the  great  blinder  of  the  eyes 
—  I  am  speaking  now  of  honest  doubt ; 
but  open  a  new  door  into  the  practical 
side  of  man's  nature.  Entreat  him 
not  to  postpone  life  and  his  life's  Use- 
fulness until  he  has  settled  the  prob- 
lems of  the  universe.  Tell  him  those 
problems  will  never  all  be  settled  ;  that 
his   life   will   be   done    before    he    has 


284      DEALING  WITH  DOUBT. 

begun  to  settle  them  ;  and  ask  him 
what  he  is  doing  with  his  Hfe  mean- 
time. Charge  him  with  wasting  his 
Hfe  and  his  usefulness ;  and  invite  him 
to  deal  with  the  moral  and  practical 
difficulties  of  the  world,  and  leave  the 
intellectual  difficulties  as  he  goes  along. 
To  spend  time  upon  these  is  proving 
the  less  important  before  the  more 
important ;  and,  as  the  French  say, 
**  The  good  is  the  enemy  of  the  best." 
It  is  a  good  thing  to  think  ;  it  is  a  bet- 
ter thing  to  work  —  it  is  a  better  thing 
to  do  good.  And  you  have  him  there, 
you  see.  He  can't  get  beyond  that. 
You  have  to  tell  him,  in  fact,  that  there 
are  two  organs  of  knowledge :  the 
one  reason,  the  other  obedience.     And 


DEALING    WITH    DOUBT.  285 

now  tell  him,  as  he  has  tried  the  first 
and  found  the  little  in  it,  just  for  a 
moment  or  two  to  join  you  in  trying 
the  second.  And  when  he  asks  whom 
he  is  to  obey,  you  tell  him  there  is  but 
One,  and  lead  him  to  the  great  histori- 
cal figure,  who  calls  all  men  to  Him  : 
the  one  perfect  life  —  the  one  Saviour 
of  mankind  —  the  one  Light  of  the 
world.  Ask  him  to  begin  to  obey 
Christ ;  and,  doing  His  will,  he  shall 
know  of  the  doctrine  whether  it  be  of 
God. 

That,  I  think,  is  about  the  only 
thing  you  can  do  with  a  man :  to  get 
him  into  practical  contact  with  the 
needs  of  the  world,  and  to  let  him  lose 
his    intellectual    difficulties    meantime. 


286  DEALING   WITH   DOUBT. 

Don't  ask  him  to  give  them  up  alto- 
gether. Tell  him  to  solve  them  after- 
ward one  by  one  if  he  can,  but  mean- 
time to  give  his  life  to  Christ  and  his 
time  to  the  kingdom  of  God.  And,  you 
see,  you  fetch  him  completely  around 
when  you  do  that.  You  have  taken 
him  away  from  the  false  side  of  his 
nature,  and  to  the  practical  and  moral 
side  of  his  nature ;  and  for  the  first 
time  in  his  life,  perhaps,  he  puts  things 
in  their  true  place.  He  puts  his  nature 
in  the  relations  in  which  it  ought  to  be, 
and  he  then  only  begins  to  live.  And 
by  obedience  —  by  obedience  —  he  will 
soon  become  a  learner  and  pupil  for 
himself,  and  Christ  will  teach  him 
things,    and     he     will     find    whatever 


MATTHEW    ARNOLD 


DEALING    WITH    DOUBT.  28/ 

problems  are  solvable  gradually  solved 
as  he  goes  along  the  path  of  prac- 
tical duty. 

Now,  let  me,  in  closing,  give  a  cou- 
ple of  instances  of  how  to  deal  with 
specific  points.  The  commonest  thing 
that  we  hear  said  nowadays  by  young 
men  is,  *' What  about  evolution.^  How 
am  I  to  reconcile  my  religion,  or  any 
religion,  with  the  doctrine  of  evolu- 
tion.?" That  upsets  more  men  than 
perhaps  anything  else  at  the  present 
hour.  How  would  you  deal  with  it  i^ 
I  would  say  to  a  man  that  Christianity 
is  the  further  evolution.  I  don't  know 
any  better  definition  than  that.  It  is  the 
further  evolution  —  the  higher  evolution. 
I  don't  start  with  him  to  attack  evolu- 


288  DEALING   WITH    DOUBT. 

tion.  I  don't  start  with  him  to  defend 
it.  I  destroy  by  fulfilling  it.  I  take 
him  at  his  own  terms.  He  says  evolu- 
tion is  that  which  pushes  the  man  on 
from  the  simple  to  the  complex,  from 
the  lower  to  the  higher.  Very  well ; 
that  is  what  Christianity  does.  It 
pushes  the  man  farther  on.  It  takes 
him  where  nature  has  left  him,  and 
carries  him  on  to  heights  which  on  the 
plain  of  nature  he  could  never  reach. 
That  is  evolution.  "Lead  me  to  the 
Rock  that  is  higher  than  I."  That  is 
evolution.  It  is  the  development  of 
the  whole  man  in  the  higher  direc- 
tions—  the  drawing  out  of  his  spiritual 
being.  Show  an  evolutionist  that,  and 
you  take  the  wind  out  of  his  sails.     "  I 


DEALING  WITH  DOUBT.      289 

came  not  to  destroy."  Don't  destroy 
his  doctrine  —  perhaps  you  can't  —  but 
fulfil  it.     Put  a  larger  meaning  into  it. 

The  other  instance  —  the  next  com- 
monest perhaps  —  is  the  question  of 
miracles.  It  is  impossible,  of  course, 
to  discuss  that  now  —  miracles ;  but 
that  question  is  thrown  at  my  head 
every  second  day:  **What  do  you  say 
to  a  man  when  he  says  to  you,  'Why 
do  you  believe  in  miracles.^'"  I  say, 
"  Because  I  have  seen  them.''  He 
says,  ''When.?"  I  say,  ''Yesterday." 
He  says,  "Where.?"  "Down  such- 
and-such  a  street  I  saw  a  man  who 
was  a  drunkard  redeemed  by  the 
power  of  an  unseen  Christ  and  saved 
from    sin.     That   is   a  miracle."      The 


290      DEALING  WITH  DOUBT. 

best  apologetic  for  Christianity  is  a 
Christian.  That  is  a  fact  which  the 
man  cannot  get  over.  There  are  fifty- 
other  arguments  for  miracles,  but  none 
so  good  as  that  you  have  seen  them. 
Perhaps  you  are  one  yourself.  But 
take  you  a  man  and  show  him  a  mira- 
cle with  his  own  eyes.  Then  he  will 
believe. 


PREPARATION    FOR  LEARNING.       29I 


PREPARATION    FOR    LEARN- 
ING. 


T3EFORE  an  artist  can  do  anything 
^-^  the  instrument  must  be  tuned. 
Our  astronomers  at  this  moment  are 
preparing  for  an  event  which  happens 
only  once  or  twice  in  a  Ufetime :  the 
total  eclipse  of  the  sun  in  the  month 
of  August.  They  have  begun  already. 
They  are  making  preparations.  At 
chosen  stations  in  different  parts  of  the 
world  they  are  spending  all  the  skill 
that  science  can  suggest  upon  the  con- 
struction of  their  instruments ;  and  up 


292      PREPARATION    FOR    LEARNING. 

to  the  last  moment  they  will  be  busy 
adjusting  them ;  and  the  last  day  will 
be  the  busiest  of  all,  because  then 
they  must  have  the  glasses  and  the 
mirrors  polished  to  the  last  degree. 
They  have  to  have  the  lenses  in  place 
and  focussed  upon  this  spot  before  the 
event  itself  takes  place. 

Every  thing  will  depend  upon  the 
instruments  which  you  bring  to  this 
experiment.  Every  thing  will  depend 
upon  it ;  and,  therefore,  fifteen  min- 
utes will  not  be  lost  if  we  each  put  our 
instrument  into  the  best  working  order 
we  can.  I  have  spoken  of  lenses, 
and  that  reminds  me  that  the  instru- 
ment which  we  bring  to  bear  upon 
truth   is   a   compound   thing.      It    con- 


PREPARATION    FOR    LEARNING.      293 

sists  of  many  parts.  Truth  is  not  a 
product  of  the  intellect  alone  ;  it  is  a 
product  of  the  whole  nature.  The 
body  is  engaged  in  it,  and  the  mind, 
and  the  soul. 

The  body  is  engaged  in  it.  Of  course, 
a  man  who  has  his  body  run  down,  or 
who  is  dyspeptic,  or  melancholy,  sees 
everything  black,  and  disordered,  and 
untrue.  But  I  am  not  going  to  dwell 
upon  that.  Most  of  you  seem  in  pretty 
fair  working  order  so  far  as  your 
bodies  are  concerned ;  only  it  is  well 
to  remember  that  we  are  to  give  our 
bodies  a  living  sacrifice  —  not  a  half- 
dead  sacrifice,  as  some  people  seem  to 
imagine.  There  is  no  virtue  in  emacia- 
tion.    I  don't   know  if  you   have  any 


294      PREPARATION    FOR    LEARNING. 

tendency  in  that  direction  in  America, 
but  certainly  we  are  in  danger  of 
dropping  into  it  now  and  then  in  Eng- 
land, and  it  is  just  as  well  to  bear  in 
mind  our  part  of  the  lens  — a  very  com- 
pound and  delicate  lens  —  with  which 
we  have  to  take  in  truth. 

Then  comes  a  very  important  part : 
the  intellect  —  which  is  one  of  the  most 
useful  servants  of  truth  ;  and  I  need 
not  tell  you  as  students,  that  the  intel- 
lect will  have  a  great  deal  to  do  with 
your  reception  of  truth.  I  was  told 
that  it  was  said  at  these  conferences 
last  year,  that  a  man  must  crucify  his 
intellect.  I  venture  to  contradict  the 
gentleman  who  made  that  statement. 
I   am    quite    sure    no    such    statement 


PREPARATION    FOR    LEARNING.      295 

oiild  ever  have  been  made  in  your 
hearing  —  that  we  were  to  crucify  our 
intellects.  We  can  make  no  progress 
without  the  full  use  of  all  the  intellec- 
tual powers  that  God  has  endowed  us 
with. 

But  more  important  than  either  of 
these  is  the  moral  nature  —  the  moral 
and  spiritual  nature.  Some  of  you 
remember  a  sermon  of  Robertson  of 
Brighton,  entitled  "  Obedience  the 
Organ  of  Spiritual  Knowledge."  A 
very  startling  title!  —  ''Obedience  the 
Organ  of  Spiritual  Knowledge."  The 
Pharisees  asked  about  Christ :  ''  How 
knoweth  this  man  letters,  never  having 
learned  } "  How  knoweth  this  man, 
never  having   learned?     The  organ  of 


296  PREPARATION  FOR  LEARNING. 

knowledge  is  not  nearly  so  much  mind, 
as  the  organ  that  Christ  used,  namely, 
obedience ;  and  that  was  the  organ 
which  He  Himself  insisted  upon  when 
He  said:  ^' He  that  willeth  to  do  His 
will  shall  know  of  the  doctrine  whether 
it  be  of  God."  You  have  all  noticed, 
of  course,  that  the  words  in  the  origi- 
nal are :  ''  If  any  man  will  do  His 
will,  he  shall  know  of  the  doctrine.'* 
It  doesn't  read,  "  If  any  do  His  will," 
which  no  man  can  do  perfectly ;  but 
if  any  man  be  simply  willing  to  do 
His  will — if  he  has  an  absolutely  un- 
divided mind  about  it  —  that  man  will 
know  what  truth  is  and  know  what 
falsehood  is ;  a  stranger  will  he  not 
follow.     And   that    is    by  far   the  best 


PREPARATION    FOR    LEARNING.      29/ 

source  of  spiritual  knowledge  on  every 
account  —  obedience  to  God  —  absolute 
sincerity  and  loyalty  in  following 
Christ.  "  If  any  man  do  His  will  he 
shall  know'*  —  a  very  remarkable  asso- 
ciation of  knowledge,  a  thing  which 
is  usually  considered  quite  intellectual, 
with  obedience,  which  is  moral  and 
spiritual. 

But  even  although  we  use  all  these 
three  different  parts  of  the  instrument, 
we  have  not  at  all  got  at  the  complete 
method  of  learning.  There  is  a  little 
preliminary  that  the  astronomer  has  to 
do  before  he  can  make  his  observation. 
He  has  to  take  the  cap  off  his  telescope. 
Many  a  man  thinks  he  is  looking  at 
truth  when    he  is  only  looking  at  the 


298      PREPARATION   FOR   LEARNING. 

cap.  Many  a  time  I  have  looked 
down  my  microscope,  and  thought  I 
was  looking  at  the  diatom  for  which 
I  had  long  been  searching,  and  found 
I  had  simply  been  looking  at  a  speck 
of  dust  upon  the  lens  itself.  Many  a 
man  thinks  he  is  looking  at  truth  when 
he  is  only  looking  at  the  spectacles  he 
has  put  on  to  see  it  with.  He  is  look- 
ing at  his  own  spectacles.  Now,  the 
common  spectacles  that  a  man  puts 
on  —  I  suppose  the  creed  in  which  he 
has  been  brought  up  —  if  a  man  looks 
at  that,  let  him  remember  that  he  is 
not  looking  at  truth :  he  is  looking  at 
his  own  spectacles.  There  is  no  more 
important  lesson  that  we  have  to  carry 
with  us  than  that  truth   is  not  to  be 


PREPAFATTON    FOR    LEARNING.      299 

found  in  what  I  have  been  taught. 
That  is  not  truth.  Truth  is  not  what 
I  have  been  taught.  If  it  were  so, 
that  would  apply  to  the  Mormon, 
it  would  apply  to  the  Brahman,  it 
would  apply  to  the  Buddhist.  Truth 
would  be  to  everybody  just  what  he 
had  been  taught.  Therefore  let  us 
dismiss  from  our  minds  the  predisposi- 
tion to  regard  that  which  we  have  been 
brought  up  in  as  being  necessarily  the 
truth.  I  must  say  it  is  very  hard  to 
shake  one's  self  free  altogether  from 
that.     I  suppose  it  is  impossible. 

But  you  see  the  reasonableness  of 
giving  up  that  as  your  view  of  truth 
when  you  come  to  apply  it  all  around. 
If   that   were  the   definition    of   truth, 


300     PREPARATION    FOR    LEARNING. 

truth  would  be  just  what  one's  parents 
were  —  it  would  be  a  thing  of  heredi- 
tary transmission,  and  not  a  thing 
absolute  in  itself.  Now,  let  me  ven- 
ture to  ask  you  to  take  that  cap  off. 
Take  that  cap  off  now,  and  make  up 
your  minds  you  are  going  to  look  at 
truth  naked  —  in  its  reality  as  it  is,  not 
as  it  is  reflected  through  other  minds, 
or  through  any  theology,  however 
venerable. 

Then  there  is  one  thing  I  think  we 
must  be  careful  about,  and  that  is 
besides  having  the  cap  off,  and  having 
all  the  lenses  clean  and  in  position  — 
to  have  the  instrument  rightly  focussed. 
Everything  may  be  right,  and  yet  when 
you  go  and  look  at  the  object,  you  see 


PREPARATION    FOR    LEARNING.      3OI 

things  altogether  falsely.  You  see 
things  not  only  blurred,  but  you  see 
things  out  of  proportion.  And  there 
is  nothing  more  important  we  have  to 
bear  in  mind  in  running  our  eye  over 
successive  theological  truths,  or  reli- 
gious truths,  than  that  there  is  a  pro- 
portion in  those  truths,  and  that  we 
must  see  them  in  their  proportion,  or 
we  see  them  falsely.  A  man  may 
take  a  dollar  or  a  half-dollar  and  hold 
it  to  his  eye  so  closely  that  he  will  hide 
the  sun  from  him.  Or  he  may  so 
focus  his  telescope  that  a  fly  or  a 
boulder  may  be  as  large  as  a  moun- 
tain. A  man  may  hold  a  certain  doc- 
trine, very  intensely  —  a  doctrine  which 
has  been  looming  upon  his  horizon  for 


302      PREPARATION    FOR    LEARNING. 

the  last  six  months,  let  us  say,  and 
which  has  thrown  everything  else  out 
of  proportion,  it  has  become  so  big 
itself.  Now  let  us  beware  of  distor- 
tion in  the  arrangement  of  the  reli- 
gious truths  which  we  hold.  It  is 
almost  impossible  to  get  things  in 
their  true  proportion  and  symmetry, 
but  this  is  the  thing  we  must  be  con- 
stantly aiming  at.  We  are  told  in  the 
Bible  to  ''add  to  your  faith  virtue,  and 
to  virtue,  knowledge,  and  to  knowl- 
edge balance,"  as  the  word  literally 
means  —  balance.  It  is  a  word  taken 
from  the  orchestra,  where  all  the  parts 

—  the  sopranos,  the  basses,  the  altos, 
and  the  tenors,  and  all  the  rest  of  them 

—  must  be  regulated.     If  you  have  too 


PRKPARATTON    FOR    LEARNING.      3OJ 

much  of  the  bass,  or  too  much  of  the 
soprano,  there  is  want  of  harmony. 
That  is  what  I  mean  by  the  want  of 
proper  focus  —  by  the  want  of  proper 
balance  —  in  the  truths  which  we  all 
hold.  It  will  never  do  to  exaggerate 
one  truth  at  the  expense  of  another,, 
and  a  truth  may  be  turned  into  a  false- 
hood very,  very  easily,  by  simply  being' 
either  too  much  enlarged  or  too  much, 
diminished.  I  once  heard  of  some 
blind  men  who  were  taken  to  see 
a  menagerie.  They  had  gone  around 
the  animals,  and  four  of  them  were 
allowed  to  touch  an  elephant  as  they 
went  past.  They  were  discussing 
afterwards  what  kind  of  a  creature  the 
elephant    was.      One    man,    \yho    had; 


304  PREPARATION  FOR  LEARNING. 

touched  its  tail,  said  the  elephant  was 
like  a  rope.  Another  of  the  blind 
men,  who  had  touched  his  hind  limb, 
said,  *'  No  such  thing !  the  elephant  is 
like  the  trunk  of  a  tree."  Another, 
who  had  felt  its  sides,  said,  ''That  is 
all  rubbish.  An  elephant  is  a  thing 
like  a  wall."  And  the  fourth,  who  had 
felt  its  ear,  said  that  an  elephant  was 
like  none  of  those  things ;  it  was  like 
a  leather  bag.  Now,  men  look  at 
truth  at  different  bits  of  it,  and  they 
see  different  things,  of  course,  and 
they  are  very  apt  to  imagine  that  the 
thing  which  they  have  seen  is  the 
whole  affair  —  the  whole  thing.  In 
reality,  we  can  only  see  a  very  little 
bit  at  a  time ;   and  we  must,  I  think, 


PREPARATION    FOR    LEARNING.      305 

learn  to  believe  that  other  men  can  see 
bits  of  truth  as  well  as  ourselves. 
Your  views  are  just  what  you  see  with 
your  own  eyes ;  and  my  views  are  just 
what  I  see ;  and  what  I  see  depends  on 
just  where  I  stand,  and  what  you  see 
depends  on  just  where  you  stand ;  and 
truth  is  very  much  bigger  than  an 
elephant,  and  we  are  very  much 
blinder  than  any  of  those  blind  men 
as  we  come  to  look  at  it. 

Christ  has  made  us  aware  that  it 
is  quite  possible  for  a  man  to  have 
ears  and  hear  nothing,  and  to  have 
eyes  and  see  not.  One  of  the  disci- 
ples saw  a  great  deal  of  Christ, 
and  he  never  knew  Him.  "  Have 
I     been     so     long     time     with     you, 


306      PREPARATION    FOR   LEARNING. 

Philip,  and  yet  hast  thou  not  known 
Me?''  ''He  that  hath  seen  Me  hath 
seen  the  Father  also."  Philip  had 
never  seen  Him.  He  had  been  look- 
ing at  his  own  spectacles,  perhaps,  or 
at  something  else,  and  had  never  seen 
Him.  If  the  instrument  had  been  in 
order,  he  would  have  seen  Christ. 
And  I  would  just  add  this  one  thing 
more :  the  test  of  value  of  the  differ- 
ent verities  of  truth  depends  upon  one 
thing :  whether  they  have  or  have  not 
a  sanctifying  power.  That  is  another 
remarkable  association  in  the  mind  of 
Christ  —  of  sanctification  with  truth  — 
thinking  and  holiness  —  not  to  be  found 
in  any  of  the  sciences  or  in  any  of  the 
philosophies.      It    is    peculiar    to    the 


PREPARATION    FOR    LEARNING.      30/ 

Bible.  Christ  said  '*  Sanctify  them 
through  Thy  truth.  Thy  word  is 
truth."  Now,  the  value  of  any  ques- 
tion—  the  value  of  any  theological 
question  —  depends  upon  whether  it  has 
a  sanctifying  influence.  If  it  has  not, 
don't  bother  about  it.  Don't  let  it  dis- 
turb your  minds  until  you  have  ex- 
hausted all  truths  that  have  sanctifica- 
tion  within  them.  If  a  truth  makes  a 
man  a  better  man,  then  let  him  focus 
his  instrument  upon  it  and  get  all  the 
acquaintance  with  it  he  can.  If  it 
is  the  profane  babbling  of  science,, 
falsely  so  called,  or  anything  that  has 
injurious  effect  upon  the  moral  and 
spiritual  nature  of  man,  it  is  better  let 
alone.     And  above  all,  let  us  remem- 


308  PREPARATION  FOR  LEARNING. 

ber  to  hold  the  truth  in  love.  That  is 
the  most  sanctifying  influence  of  all. 
And  if  we  can  carry  away  the  mere 
lessons  of  toleration,  and  leave  behind 
us  our  censoriousness,  and  criticalness, 
and  harsh  judgments  upon  one  another, 
and  excommunicating  of  everybody 
except  those  who  think  exactly  as  we 
do,  the  time  we  shall  spend  here  will 
not  be  the  least  useful  parts  of  our 
lives. 


WHAT  IS  A  CHRISTIAN? 


WHAT  IS  A  CHRISTIAN? 


\/OUNG  men  are  learning  to  respect 
*  more,  perhaps,  than  ever  young 
men  have  done,  the  word  *' Christian." 
I  have  seen  the  time  when  it  was  sy- 
nonymous with  cant  and  unreality  and 
strained  feeling  and  sanctimoniousness. 
But  although  that  day  is  not  quite 
passed  yet,  it  is  passing.  I  heard  this 
definition  the  other  day  of  a  Christian 
man  by  a  cynic  —  *'A  Christian  man 
is  a  man  whose  great  aim  in  life  is  a 
selfish  desire  to  save  his  own  soul,  who, 
in  order  to  do  that,  goes   regularly  to 

311 


312  WHAT    IS   A    CHRISTIAN? 

church,  and  whose  supreme  hope  is  to 
get  to  Heaven  when  he  dies."  This 
reminds  one  of  Professor  Huxley's  ex- 
amination paper  in  which  the  question 
was  put — "What  is  a  lobster?'*  One 
student  replied  that  a  lobster  was  a  red 
fish,  which  moves  backwards.  The  ex- 
aminer noted  that  this  was  a  very  good 
answer,  but  for  three  things.  In  the 
first  place  a  lobster  was  not  a  fish  ;  sec- 
ond it  was  not  red ;  and  third  it  did  not 
move  backwards.  If  there  is  anything 
that  a  Christian  is  not,  it  is  one  who 
has  a  selfish  desire  to  save  his  own 
soul.  The  one  thing  which  Christianity 
tries  to  extirpate  from  a  man's  nature 
is  selfishness,  even  though  it  be  the 
losing  of  his  own  soul. 


WHAT    IS    A    CHRISTIAN?  313 

Christianity,  as  we  understand  it 
from  Christ,  appeals  to  the  generous 
side  of  a  young  man's  nature,  and  not 
to  the  selfish  side.  In  the  new  version 
of  the  New  Testament  the  word  "soul" 
is  always  translated  in  this  connection 
by  the  word  *'life/'  That  marks  a  revo- 
lution in  the  popular  theology,  and  it 
will  make  a  revolution  in  every  Young 
Man's  Christian  Association  in  the 
country  where  it  comes  to  be  seen  that 
a  man's  Christianity  does  not  consist 
in  merely  saving  his  own  soul,  but  in 
sanctifying  and  purifying  the  lives  of 
his  fellow-men.  We  are  told  in  the 
New  Testament  that  Christianity  is 
leaven,  and  "leaven"  comes  from  the 
same  root-word  as  lever,  meaning  that 


314  WHAT    IS    A    CHRISTIAN? 

which  raises  up,  which  elevates;  and 
a  Christian  young  man  is  a  man  who 
raises  up  or  elevates  the  lives  of  those 
round  about  him.  We  are  also  told 
that  Christianity  is  salt,  and  salt  is  that 
which  saves  from  corruption.  What 
is  it  that  saves  the  life  of  the  world 
from  being  utterly  rotten,  but  the 
Christian  elements  that  are  in  it? 
Matthew  Arnold  has  said,  "  Show  me 
ten  square  miles  in  any  part  of  the 
world  outside  Christianity  where  the 
life  of  man  and  the  purity  of  woman 
are  safe,  and  I  will  give  Christianity 
up."  In  no  part  cf  the  world  is  there 
any  such  ten  square  miles  outside 
Christianity.  Christian  men  are  the 
salt  of   the   earth   in  the   most    literal 


WHAT    IS    A    CHRISTIAN?  315 

sense.      They,    and    they    alone,    keep 
the  world  from  utter  destruction. 

I  want  to  say  a  word  here  about  the 
Young  Men's  Christian  Associations. 
Many  have  criticised  them.  They  have 
been  the  target  for  a  great  deal  of 
abuse.  Many  of  the  best  young  men 
have  sneered  at  them,  and  turned  up 
their  noses  at  them,  and  denounced 
them.  I  am  speaking  with  absolute 
sympathy  and  respect,  and  even  enthu- 
siasm, for  Young  Men's  Christian 
Associations.  But  I  will  turn  for  one 
instant  upon  those  men  who  turn 
against  them,  and  tell  them  that  it  is 
not  breadth  that  leads  them  to  do  that, 
but  what  one  might  call  the  narrow- 
ness of   breadth  —  that  breadth  which 


3l6  WHAT    IS    A    CHRISTIAN/ 

denounces  intolerance,  and  which  is 
itself  too  intolerant  to  tolerate  intoler- 
ance. And,  as  some  one  says,  it  is 
easier  to  criticise  the  best  thing  su- 
perbly than  to  do  the  smallest  thing 
indifferently. 

It  is  very  easy  to  criticise  the  meth- 
ods and  aims  and  men  of  the  Young 
Men's  Christian  Associations.  If,  in- 
stead of  looking  on  and  criticising  those 
who  know  a  thing  or  two,  those  who 
think  they  are  wiser,  and  that  they  have 
the  whole  truth,  would  throw  themselves 
in  among  others  and  back  them  and  try 
to  work  alongside  of  them,  they  would 
get  perhaps  their  breadth  tempered  by 
earnestness  and  by  zeal,  because  the 
narrow  man  has  much  to  contribute  to 


WHAT    IS    A    CHRISTIAN?  ^JJ 

the  Christian  cause,  perhaps  more  than 
the  broad  man.  But  it  needs  all  kinds 
of  people  to  make  a  world ;  it  needs  all 
kinds  of  people  to  make  a  church,  and 
every  type  of  young  men  a  Christian 
Association;  and  the  greatest  mistake 
of  all  i^  to  have  every  man  stamped  in 
the  same  stamp,  so  that  if  you  met  him 
in  a  railway  train  one  hundred  miles 
off,  you  would  know  him  as  a  Y.  M. 
C.  A.  man.  I  would  like  to  find  many 
who  would  not  wear  the  badge  so  pro- 
nouncedly, that  every  one  should  know 
them  at  a  glance. 

There  is  only  one  great  character  in 
the  world  that  can  really  draw  out  all 
that  is  best  in  man.  He  is  so  far  above 
all  others  in  influencing  men  for  good 


3l8  WHAT    IS    A    CHRISTIAN? 

that  He  stands  alone.  That  man  was 
the  founder  of  Christianity.  To  be  a 
Christian  man  is  to  have  that  character 
for  our  ideal  in  life,  to  live  under  its 
influence,  to  do  what  He  would  wish 
us  to  do,  to  live  the  kind  of  life  He 
would  have  lived  in  our  house,  and  had 
He  our  day's  routine  to  go  through. 
It  would  not,  perhaps,  alter  the  forms 
of  our  life,  but  it  would  alter  the  spirit 
and  aims  and  motives  of  our  life,  and 
the  Christian  man  is  he  who  in  that 
sense  lives  under  the  influence  of  Jesus 
Christ. 

Now,  there  is  nothing  that  a  young^ 
man    wants    for   his   ideal   that    is    not 
■found   in   Christ.      You  would   be  sur- 
prised when  you    come   to   know  who 


WHAT    IS    A    CHRISTIAN?  319 

Christ  is,  if  you  have  not  thought  much 
about  it,  to  find  how  He  will  fit  in  with 
all  human  needs,  and  call  out  all  that 
is  best  in  man.  The  highest  and  man- 
liest character  that  ever  lived  was 
Christ.  One  incident  I  often  think  of 
and  wonder.  You  remember,  when 
He  hung  upon  the  cross,  there  was 
handed  up  to  Him  a  vessel  containing 
a  stupefying  drug,  supplied  by  a  kind 
society  of  ladies  in  Jerusalem,  who 
always  sent  it  to  criminals  when  being 
executed.  And  that  stupefying  drug 
was  handed  up  to  Christ's  lips.  And 
we  read,  '*When  he  tasted  thereof 
He  would  not  drink."  I  have  always 
thought  that  one  of  the  most  heroic 
actions  I  have  ever  read  of.     But  that 


320  WHAT    IS    A    CHRISTIAN? 

was  only  one  very  small  side  of  Christ's 
nature.  He  can  be  everything  that  a 
man  wants.  Paul  tells  us  that  if  we 
live  in  Christ  we  are  changed  into  His 
image.  All  that  a  man  has  to  do, 
then,  to  be  like  Christ,  is  simply  to 
live  in  friendship  with  Christ,  and  the 
character  follows. 

But  it  is  only  one  of  the  aims  of 
Christianity  to  make  the  best  men. 
The  next  thing  Christ  wants  to  do  is 
to  make  the  best  world.  And  He 
tries  to  make  the  best  world  by  setting 
the  best  men  loose  upon  the  world  to 
influence  it  and  reflect  Him  upon  it. 
In  1874  a  religious  movement  began 
in  Edinburgh  University  among  the 
students    themselves,    that     has    since 


WHAT    IS    A    CHRISTIAN?  32 1 

spread  to  some  of  the  best  academic 
institutions  in  America.  The  students 
have  a  hall,  and  there  they  meet  on 
Sundays,  or  occasionally  on  week-days, 
to  hear  addresses  from  their  profes- 
sors, or  from  outside  eminent  men,  on 
Christian  topics.  There  is  no  com- 
mittee ;  there  are  no  rules ;  there  are 
no  reports.  Every  meeting  is  held 
strictly  in  private,  and  any  attempt  to 
pose  before  the  world  is  sternly  dis- 
couraged. No  paragraphs  are  put  into 
the  journals ;  no  addresses  are  reported. 
The  meetings  are  private,  quiet,  ear- 
nest, and  whatsoever  student  likes  may 
attend  them.  That  is  all.  It  is  not 
an  organization  in  the  ordinary  sense, 
it   is   a  "leaven."     In   all   the   schools 


'322  WHAT    IS    A    CHRISTIAN? 

it  is  the  best  men  who  take  most 
part  in  the  movement,  and  among  the 
schools  it  is  the  medical  side  which 
furnishes  the  greatest  number  of  stu- 
dents to  the  meetings.  Some  of  the 
most  zealous  have  taken  high  honors 
in  their  examinations,  and  some  have 
been  in  the  first  class  of  university 
athletes..  It  is  not  a  movement  that 
has  laid  hold  of  weak  or  worthless 
students  whom  nobody  respects,  but 
one  that  is  maintained  by  the  best  men 
in  every  department.  The  first  benefit 
is  to  the  students  themselves.  Take 
Edinburgh,  with  about  4000  students 
drawn  from  all  parts  of  the  world,  and 
living  in  rooms  with  no  one  caring  for 
them.      Taken   away  from    the    moral 


WHAT    IS    A    CHRISTIAN?  323 

support  of  their  previous  surroundings, 
they  went  to  the  bad  in  hundreds.  It  is 
now  found  that  through  this  movement 
they  work  better,  and  that  a  greater 
percentage  pass  laonorably  through  the 
university  portals  into  life.  The  reli- 
gious meetings,  it  is  to  be  observed, 
are  never  allowed  to  interfere  with  the 
work  of  the  students.  The  second 
result  is  to  be  seen  in  what  are  called 
university  settlements.  A  few  men 
will  band  themselves  together  and  rent 
a  house  in  the  lower  parts  of  the  city 
and  live  there.  They  do  no  preaching, 
no  formal  evangelization  work ;  but 
they  help  the  sick  and  they  arrange 
smoking  concerts,  and  contribute  to  the 
amusement   of   their   neighbors.     They 


324  WHAT    IS    A    CHRISTIAN? 

simply  live  with  the  people,  and  trust 
that  their  example  will  produce  a  good 
effect.  Three  years  ago  they  printed 
and  distributed  among  themselves  the 
following  **  Programme  of  Christian- 
ity : "  —  '*  To  bind  up  the  broken- 
hearted, to  give  liberty  to  the  captives, 
to  comfort  all  that  mourn,  to  give 
beauty  for  ashes,  the  garment  of  praise 
for  the  spirit  of  heaviness.'*  I  suppose 
there  are  few  of  us  with  broken  hearts, 
but  there  are  other  people  in  the  world 
besides  ourselves,  and  underneath  all 
the  gayety  of  the  city  there  is  not  a 
street  in  which  there  are  not  men  and 
women  with  broken  hearts.  Who  is 
to  help  these  people.^  No  one  can  lift 
them  up  in  any  way  except  those  who 


WHAT    IS    A    CHRISTIAN?  325 

are  living  the  life  of  Christ,  and  it  is 
their  privilege  and  business  to  bind  up 
the  broken-hearted. 

I  want  to  urge  the  claims  of  the 
Christian  ministry  on  the  strength  and 
talent  of  our  youth.  I  find  a  singular 
want  of  men  in  the  Christian  ministry, 
and  I  think  it  would  be  at  least  worth 
while  for  some  of  you  to  look  around, 
to  look  at  the  men  who  are  not  filling 
the  churches,  to  look  at  the  needs  of 
the  crowds  who  throng  the  streets,  and 
see  if  you  could  do  better  with  your 
life  than  throw  yourself  into  that  work. 
The  advantage  of  the  ministry  is  that 
a  man's  whole  life  can  be  thrown  into 
the  carrying  out  of  that  programme 
without    any   deduction.      Another   ad- 


326  WHAT    IS    A    CHRISTIAN? 

vantage  of  the  ministry  is  that  it  is  so 
poorly  paid  that  a  man  is  not  tempted 
to  cut  a  dash  and  shine  in  the  world, 
but  can  be  meek  and  lowly  in  heart, 
like  his  Master.  It  is  enough  for  a 
servant  to  be  like  his  master,  and  there 
is  a  great  attraction  in  seeking  obscu- 
rity, even  isolation,  if  one  can  be 
following  the  highest  ideal. 

With  regard  to  the  question,  how 
you  shall  begin  the  Christian  life,  let 
me  remind  you  that  theology  is  the 
most  abstruse  thing  in  the  world,  but 
that  practical  religion  is  the  simplest 
thing.  If  any  of  you  want  to  know 
how  to  begin  to  be  a  Christian,  all  I 
can  say  is  that  you  should  begin  to  do 
the  next  thing  you  find  to  be  done  as 


WHAT    IS    A    CHRISTIAN?  327 

Christ  would  have  done  it.  If  you 
follow  Christ  the  "old  man"  will  die 
of  atrophy,  and  the  "new  man"  will 
grow  day  by  day  under  His  abiding 
friendship. 


THE   STUDY  OF   THE    BIBLE. 


THE    STUDY    OF    THE 
BIBLE. 


I    WILL  give  a  note   or  two,  pretty 
much    by    way    of    refreshing    the 
memory  about  the   Bible   and    how  to 
look  at  it. 

First :  The  Bible  came  out  of  religion, 
not  religion  ont  of  the  Bible.  The  Bible 
is  a  product  of  religion,  not  a  cause 
of  it.  The  war  literature  of  America, 
which  culminated,  I  suppose,  in  the 
publication  of  President  Grant's  life, 
came  out  of  the  war ;  the  war  did  not 

33« 


332         THE    STUDY    OF    THE    BIBLE. 

come  out  of  the  literature.  And  so  in 
the  distant  past,  there  flowed  among 
the  nations  of  heathendom  a  small 
warm  stream,  like  the  Gulf  Stream  in 
the  cold  Atlantic  —  a  small  stream  of 
religion;  and  now  and  then  at  inter- 
vals, men,  carried  along  by  this  stream, 
uttered  themselves  in  words.  The  his- 
torical books  came  out  of  facts ;  the 
devotional  books  came  out  of  experi- 
ences; the  letters  came  out  of  circum- 
stances ;  and  the  Gospels  came  out  of 
all  three.  That  is  where  the  Bible 
came  from.  It  came  out  of  religion  ; 
religion  did  not  come  out  of  the  Bible. 
You  see  the  difference.  The  religion 
is  not,  then,  in  the  writing  alone ;  but 
in    those    facts,    experiences,    circum- 


THE    STUDY    OF    THE    BIBLE.         333 

Stances,  in  the  history  and  develop- 
ment of  a  people  led  and  taught  by 
God.  And  it  is  not  the  words  that 
are  inspired  so  much  as  the  men. 

Secondly  :  These  men  were  authors ; 
they  were  not  pefis.  Their  individuality 
comes  out  on  every  page  they  wrote. 
They  were  different  in  mental  and 
literary  style  ;  in  insight ;  and  even  the 
same  writer  differs  at  different  times. 
II.  Thessalonians,  for  example,  is  con- 
siderably beneath  the  level  of  Romans, 
and  III.  John  is  beneath  the  level  of 
I.  John.  A  man  is  not  always  at  his 
best.  These  writers  did  not  know  they 
were  writing  a  Bible. 

Third  :  The  Bible  is  not  a  book ;  it 
is  a  library.      It   consists   of    sixty-six 


334        THE    STUDY    OF    THE    BIBLE. 

books.  It  is  a  great  convenience,  but 
in  some  respects  a  great  misfortune, 
that  these  books  have  always  been 
bound  up  together  and  given  out  as 
one  book  to  the  world,  when  they  are 
not ;  because  that  has  led  to  endless 
mistakes  in  theology  and  in  practical 
life. 

Fourth  :  These  books,  which  make 
up  this  library,  written  at  intervals  of 
hundreds  of  years,  were  collected  after 
the  last  of  the  writers  was  dead  —  long 
after — by  human  hands.  Where  were 
the  books  ?  Take  the  New  Testament. 
There  were  four  lives  of  Christ.  One 
was  in  Rome;  one  was  in  Southern 
Italy ;  one  was  in  Palestine ;  one  in 
Asia  Minor.      There   were   twenty-one 


THE    STUDY    OF    THE    BIBLE.         335 

letters.  Five  were  in  Greece  and 
Macedonia  ;  five  in  Asia  ;  one  in 
Rome.  The  rest  were  in  the  pockets 
of  private  individuals.  Theophilus  had 
acts.  They  were  collected  undesign- 
edly. For  example,  the  letter  to  the 
Galatians  was  written  to  the  Church 
in  Galatia.  Somebody  would  make  a 
copy  or  two,  and  put  it  into  the  hands 
of  the  members  of  the  different 
churches,  and  they  would  find  their 
way  not  only  to  the  churches  in  Gala- 
tia, but  after  an  interval  to  nearly 
all  the  churches.  In  those  days  the 
Christians  scattered  up  and  down 
through  the  world,  exchanged  copies 
of  those  letters,  very  much  as  geolo- 
gists up  and  down  the  world  exchange 


^;^6        THE    STUDY    OF    THE   BIBLE. 

specimens  of  minerals  at  the  present 
time,  or  entomologists  exchange  speci- 
mens of  butterflies.  And  after  a  long 
time  a  number  of  the  books  began  to 
be  pretty  well  known.  In  the  third 
century  the  New  Testament  consisted 
of  the  following  books:  the  four  Gos- 
pels, Acts,  thirteen  letters  of  Paul, 
I.  John,  I.  Peter ;  and  in  addition,  the 
Epistles  of  Barnabas  and  Hermas. 
This  was  not  called  the  New  Testa- 
ment, but  the  Christian  Library.  Then 
these  last  books  were  discarded.  They 
ceased  to  be  regarded  as  upon  the 
same  level  as  the  others.  In  the 
fourth  century  the  canon  was  closed  — 
that  is  to  say,  a  list  was  made  up  of 
the  books  which  were  to   be  regarded 


THE    STUDY    OF    THE    BIBLL.         337 

as  canonical.  And  then  long  after 
that  they  were  stitched  together  and 
made  up  into  one  book  —  hundreds  of 
years  after  that.  Who  made  up  the 
complete  list  ?  It  was  never  formally 
made  up.  The  bishops  of  the  differ- 
ent churches  would  draw  up  a  list 
each  of  the  books  that  they  thought 
ought  to  be  put  into  this  Testament. 
The  churches  also  would  give  their 
opinion.  Sometimes  councils  would 
meet  and  talk  it  over  —  discuss  it. 
Scholars  like  Jerome  would  investi- 
gate the  authenticity  of  the  different 
documents,  and  there  came  to  be  a 
general  consensus  of  the  churches  on 
the  matter.  But  no  formal  closing  of 
the  canon  was  ever  attempted. 


338        THE    STUDY    OF    THE    BIBLE. 

And  lastly  :  All  religions  have  their 
sacred  books,  just  as  the  Christians 
have  theirs.  Why  is  it  necessary  to 
remind  ourselves  of  that  ?  If  you  ask 
a  man  why  he  believes  such  and  such 
a  thing,  he  will  tell  you,  Because  it  is 
in  the  Bible.  If  you  ask  him,  **  How 
do  you  know  the  Bible  is  true  ?  '*  he 
will  probably  reply,  "  Because  it  says 
so.'*  Now,  let  that  man  remember 
that  the  sacred  books  of  all  the  other 
religions  make  the  same  claim ;  and 
while  it  is  quite  enough  among  our- 
selves to  talk  about  a  thing  being  true 
because  it  is  in  the  Bible,  we  come  in 
contact  with  outsiders,  and  we  have  to 
meet  the  skepticism  of  the  day.  We 
must   go   far   deeper  than   that.     The 


THE    STUDY   OF   THE    BIBLE.        339 

religious  books  of  the  other  religions 
claim  to  be  far  more  divine  in  their 
origin  than  do  ours.  For  example,  the 
Mohammedans  claim  for  the  Koran  — 
a  large  section  of  them,  at  least — that 
it  was  uncreated,  and  that  it  lay  before 
the  throne  of  God  from  the  beginning 
of  time.  They  claim  it  was  put  in 
the  hands  of  the  angel  Gabriel,  who 
brought  it  down  to  Mahomet,  and  dic- 
tated it  to  him,  and  allowed  him  at 
long  intervals  to  have  a  look  at  the 
original  book  itself  —  bound  with  silk 
and  studded  with  precious  stones.  That 
is  a  claim  of  much  higher  Divinity  than 
we  claim  for  our  book  ;  and  if  we  sim- 
ply have  to  rely  upon  the  Bible's  tes- 
timony to  its  own  verity,  it  is  for  the 


340        THE    STUDY    OF    THE   BIBLE. 

same  reason  the  Mohammedan  would 
have  you  believe  his  book,  and  the 
Hindu  would  have  you  put  your  trust 
in  the  Vedas.  That  is  why  thorough 
Bible  study  is  of  such  importance.  We 
can  get  to  the  bottom  of  truth  in  itself, 
and  be  able  to  give  a  reason  for  the 
faith  that  is  in  us. 

Now  may  I  give  you,  before  I  stop, 
just  a  couple  of  examples  of  how  the 
Bible  came  out  of  religion,  and  not 
religion  out  of  the  Bible  ?  Take  one 
of  the  letters.  Just  see  how  it  came 
out  of  the  circumstances  of  the  time. 
The  first  of  the  letters  that  was  written 
will  do  very  well  as  an  example.  It  is 
the  1st  Epistle  to  the  Thessalonians. 
In  the  year   52   Paul  went  to  Europe, 


THE    STUDY    OF    THE    BIBLE.         34I 

He  spent  three  Sundays  in  Thessa- 
lonica,  created  a  great  disturbance  by 
his  preaching,  and  a  riot  sprang  up, 
and  his  Hfe  was  in  danger.  He  was 
smuggled  out  of  the  city  at  night  — 
not,  however,  before  having  founded 
a  small  church.  He  wcis  unable  to 
go  back  to  Thessalonica,  although  he 
tried  it  two  or  three  times  ;  but  he 
wrote  a  letter.  That  is  the  first  letter 
to  the  Thessalonians.  You  see  how  it 
sprang  out  of  the  circumstances  of  the 
time.  Take  a  second  example.  Let 
us  take  one  of  the  lives  of  Christ. 
Suppose  you  take  the  life  recorded  by 
Mark.  Now,  from  internal  evidences 
you  can  make  out  quite  clearly  how  it 
was  written,  by  whom   it  was  written, 


342         THE    STUDY    OF    THE    BIBLE. 

and  to  whom  it  was  written.  You 
understand  at  once  it  was  written  to  a 
Roman  public.  If  I  were  writing  a 
letter  to  a  red  Indian  I  would  make  it 
very  different  from  a  letter  I  would 
write  to  a  European.  Now,  Mark  puts 
in  a  number  of  points  which  he  would 
not  if  he  had  been  writing  to  Greeks. 
For  example,  Mark  almost  never  quotes 
prophecy.  The  Romans  did  not  know 
anything  about  prophecy.  Then,  he 
gives  little  explanation  of  Jewish  cus- 
toms. When  I  was  writing  home  I 
had  to  give  some  little  explanations 
of  American  customs  —  for  example, 
Commencement  Day.  When  Mark 
writes  to  Rome  about  things  hap- 
pening   farther    East,    he    gives    elab- 


THE    STUDV    OF    THE    BIBLE.        343 

orate  explanations.  Again,  Mark  is 
fond  of  Latin  words  —  writing  to  the 
Latins,  who  could  understand  them. 
He  talks  about  **  centurion,"  "  pra^to- 
rium,"  and  others.  Then,  he  always 
turns  Jewish  money  into  Roman  money, 
just  as  I  should  say  a  book,  if  I  were 
writing  to  Europe  about  it,  cost  two 
shillings,  instead  of  fifty  cents.  Mark, 
for  example,  says,  "  two  mites,  which 
make  a  codrantes."  He  refers  to  the 
coins  which  the  Romans  knew.  In 
these  ways  we  find  out  that  the  Bible 
came  out  of  the  circumstances  and  the 
places  and  the  times  in  which  it  was 
written.  Then  if  we  will  we  can 
learn  where  Mark  got  his  information, 
to  a  large  extent.      It  is  an  extremely 


344        THE    STUDY    OF    THE    BIBLE. 

interesting  study.  I  should  like  to 
refer  to  Gocet's  ''  New  Testament 
Studies,'*  where  you  will  get  this 
worked  out.  Let  me  just  indicate  to 
you  how  these  sources  of  information 
are  arrived  at  —  the  principal  sources 
of  information.  There  are  a  number 
of  graphic  touches  in  the  book  which 
indicate  an  eye-witness.  Mark  him- 
self could  not  have  been  the  eye- 
witness ;  and  yet  there  are  a  number 
of  graphic  touches  which  show  that  he 
got  his  account  from  an  eye-witness. 
You  will  find  them,  for  example,  in 
Mark  iv.  38;  x.  50;  vi.  31;  vii.  34. 
You  will  find  also  graphic  touches 
indicating  an  ear-witness  —  as  if  the 
voice    lingered    in    the    mind    of    the 


THE    STUDY    OF    THE    BIBLE.         345 

writer.  For  example,  the  retention  of 
Aramaic  in  v.  41  ;  and  in  vii.  34  — 
*' Talitha  cumi ;  Damsel,  I  say  unto 
thee,  arise."  He  retained  the  Aramaic 
words  Christ  said,  as  I  would  say  in 
Scotland,  *'My  wee  lassie,  rise  up." 
The  very  words  lingered  in  his  ear, 
and  he  put  them  in  the  original.  Then 
there  are  occasional  phrases  indicating 
the  moral  impression  produced  —  v.  15  ; 
X.  24;  X.  32.  Now,  Mark  himself 
was  not  either  the  eye-witness  or  ear- 
witness.  There  is  internal  evidence 
that  he  got  his  information  from  Peter. 
We  know  very  well  that  Mark  was 
an  intimate  friend  of  Peter's.  When 
Peter  came  to  Mark's  house  in  Jerusa- 
lem, after  he  got   out    of    prison,  the 


346        THE    STUDV    OF    THE    BIBLE. 

very  servant  knew  his  voice,  so  that 
he  must  have  been  well  known  in  the 
house.  Therefore  he  was  a  friend  of 
Mark's.  The  coloring  and  notes  seem 
to  be  derived  from  Peter.  There  is  a 
sense  of  wonder  and  admiration  which 
you  find  all  through  the  book,  very 
like  Peter's  way  of  looking  at  things  — 
i.  27;  i.  33;  i.  45  ;  ii.  12;  v.  42;  and 
a  great  many  others.  But,  still  more 
interesting,  Mark  quotes  the  words, 
**Get  thee  behind  Me,  Satan,"  which 
were  said  to  Peter's  shame,  but  he 
omits  the  preceding  words  said  to  his 
honor  — "Thou  art  Peter.  On  this 
rock,"  and  so  on.  Peter  had  learned 
to  be  humble  when  he  was  telling 
Mark   about   it.      Compare    Mark  viii. 


THE    STUDY    OF    THE    BIBLE.        347 

27-33,  with  Matthew's  account — xvi. 
13-33-  Mark  also  omits  the  fine 
achievement  of  Peter  —  walking  on 
the  lake.  When  Peter  was  talking  to 
Mark,  he  never  said  anything  about 
it.  Compare  vi.  50  with  Matthew's 
account  —  xiv.  28.  And  Mark  alone 
records  the  two  warnings  given  to 
Peter  by  the  two  cock-crowings,  mak- 
ing his  fall  the  more  inexcusable.  See 
Mark  xiv.  30 ;  also  the  68th  verse 
and  the  72d.  Peter  did  not  write  the 
book ;  we  know  that,  because  Peter's 
style  is  entirely  different.  None  of 
the  four  Gospels  have  the  names  of 
the  writers  attached  to  them.  We 
have  had  to  find  all  these  things  out  ; 
but   Mark's    Gospel  is   obviously  made 


343         THE    STUDY    OF    THE    BIBLE. 

up  of   notes   from    Peter's    evangelistic 
addresses. 

So  we  see  from  these  simple  exam- 
ples how  human  a  book  the  Bible  is, 
and  how  the  Divinity  in  it  has  worked 
through  human  means.  The  Bible,  in 
fact,  has  come  out  of  religion;  not 
religion  out  of  the  Bible. 


A  TALK  ON  BOOKS. 


No  book  is  worth  anything  which  is  not  worth 
much  nor  is  it  serviceable  until  it  has  been  read, 
and  re-read,  and  loved,  and  loved  again;  and 
marked  so  that  you  can  refer  to  the  passages  you 
want  in  it,  as  a  soldier  can  seize  the  weapons  he 
needs  in  any  armory,  or  a  housewife  bring  the 
piece  she  needs  from  her  store. 

—  John  Ruskin. 

Except  a  living  man,  there  ie  nothing  more 
wonderful  than  a  book !  —  A  message  to  us  from 
the  dead  —  from  human  souls  whom  we  never 
saw,  who  lived,  perhaps,  thousands  of  miles  away, 
and  yet  these,  or  those  little  sheets  of  paper, 
speak  to  us,  amuse  us,  comfort  us,  open  their 
hearts  to  us  as  brothers. 

—  Chas.  Kingsley. 

Good  books,  like  good  friends,  are  few  and 
chosen ;  the  more  select  the  more  enjoyable. 

—  A.  Bronson  Alcott. 


A  TALK  ON  BOOKS. 


ly /lY  object  at  this  time  is  to  give 
encouragement  and  help  to  the 
*'  duffers,"  the  class  of  *'  hopeful  duffers." 
Brilliant  students  have  every  'help,  but 
second-class  students  are  sometimes  neg- 
lected  and  disheartened.  I  have  great 
sympathy  "with  the  duffers,"  because  I 
was  only  a  second-rate  student  myself. 
The  subject  of  my  talk  with  you  is 

Books. 
A  gentleman  in  Scotland  who  has  an 
excellent  library  has  placed  on  one  side 


352  A   TALK   ON    BOOKS. 

of  the  room  his  heavy  sombre  tomes, 
and  over  those  shelves  the  form  of  an 
owl.  On  the  other  side  of  the  room  are 
arranged  the  lighter  books,  and  over 
these  is  the  figure  of  a  bird  known  in 
Scotland  as  ''the  dipper."  This  is  a 
most  sensible  division.  The  ''owl 
books"  are  to  be  mastered, — the  great 
books,  such  as  Gibbon's  "Rome," 
Butlers  "Analogy,"  Dorner's  "Person 
of  Christ,"  and  text-books  of  philosophy 
and  science.  Every  student  should 
master  one  or  two,  at  least,  of  such 
"owl  books,"  to  exercise  his  faculties, 
and  give  him  concentrativeness.  I  do 
not  intend  to  linger  at  this  side  of  the 
library,  but  will  cross  over  to  the  "dip- 
per  books,"   which   are   for   occasional 


A    TALK    ON    BOOKS.  353 

reading — for    stimulus,    for    guidance, 
recreation.     I  will  be 

Autobiographical. 
When  I  was  a  student  in  lodgings  I 
began  to  form  a  library,  which  I  ar- 
ranged along  the  mantelshelf  of  my 
room.  It  did  not  contain  many  books ; 
but  it  held  as  many  as  some  students 
could  afford  to  purchase,  and  if  wisely 
chosen,  as  many  as  one  could  well  use. 
My  first  purchase  was  a  volume  of  ex- 
tracts from  Ruskin's  works,  which  then 
in  their  complete  form  were  very  costly. 
Ruskin  taught  me  to  use  my  eyes.  Men 
are  born  blind  as  bats  or  kittens,  and 
it  is  long  before  men's  eyes  are  opened ; 
some  men  never  learn  to  see  as  long  as 
they  live.    I  often  wondered,  if  there  was 


354  A   TALK    ON    BOOKS. 

a  Creator,  why  He  had  not  made  the 
world  more  beautiful.  Would  not  crim- 
son and  scarlet  colors  have  been  far 
richer  than  green  and  browns  ?  But 
Ruskin  taught  me  to  see  the  world  as  it 
is,  and  it  soon  became  a  new  world  to 
me,  full  of  charm  and  loveliness.  Now 
I  can  linger  beside  a  ploughed  field  and 
revel  in  the  affluence  of  color  and  shade 
which  are  to  be  seen  in  the  newly  turned 
furrows,  and  I  gaze  in  wonder  at  the 
liquid  amber  of  the  two  feet  of  air  above 
the  brown  earth.  Now  the  colors  and 
shades  of  the  woods  are  a  delight,  and 
at  every  turn  my  eyes  are  surprised  at 
fresh  charms.  The  rock  which  I  had 
supposed  to  be  naked  I  saw  clothed  with 
lichens  —  patches  of  color  —  marvellous 


A    TALK    ON    BOOKS.  355 

organisms,  frail  as  the  ash  of  a  cigar, 
thin  as  brown  paper,  yet  growing  and 
fructifying  in  spite  of  wind  and  rain,  of 
scorching  sun  and  biting  frost.  I  owe 
much  to  Ruskin  for  teaching  me  to  see. 
Next  on  my  mantelshelf  was  Emer- 
son. I  discovered  Emerson  for  myself. 
When  I  asked  what  Emerson  was,  one 
authority  pronounced  him  a  great  man ; 
another  as  confidently  wrote  him  down 
a  humbug.  So  I  silently  stuck  to 
Emerson.  Carlyle  I  could  not  read. 
After  wading  through  a  page  of  Carlyle 
I  felt  as  if  I  had  been  whipped.  Carlyle 
scolded  too  much  for  my  taste  and  he 
seemed  to  me  a  great  man  gone  delirious. 
But  in  Emerson  I  found  what  I  would 
fain  have  sought  in  Carlyle ;  and,  more- 


356  A    TALK    ON    BOOKS. 

over,  I  was  soothed  and  helped.  Emer- 
son taught  me  to  see  with  the  mind. 

Next  on  my  shelf  came  two  or  three 
volumes  of  George  Eliot's  works,  from 
which  I  gained  some  knowledge  and  a 
furthur  insight  into  many  philosophical 
and  social  questions.  But  my  chief 
debt  to  George  Eliot  at  that  time  was 
that  she  introduced  me  to  pleasant  char- 
acters—  nice  people — and  especially  to 
one  imaginary  young  lady  whom  I  was 
in  love  with  one  whole  winter,  and  it 
diverted  my  mind  in  solitude.  A  good 
novel  is  a  valuable  acquisition,  and  it 
supplies  companionship  of  a  pleasant 
kind. 

Amongst  my  small  residue  of  books  I 
must  name  Channing's  works.    Before  I 


A    TALK    ON    liOOKS.  2>S7 

read  Channing  I  doubted  whether  there 
was  a  God ;  at  least  I  would  rather  have 
believed  that  there  were  no  God.  After 
becoming  acquainted  with  Channing  I 
could  believe  there  was  a  God,  and  I  was 
glad  to  believe  in  Him,  for  I  felt  drawn 
to  the  good  and  gracious  Sovereign  of 
all  things.  Still,  I  needed  further  what 
I  found  in  F.  W.  Robertson,  the  British 
officer  in  the  pulpit  —  bravest,  truest  of 
men  —  who  dared  to  speak  what  he  be- 
lieved at  all  hazards.  From  Robertson 
I  learned  that  God  is  human ;  that  we 
may  have  fellowship  with  Him,  because 
He  sympathizes  with  us. 

One  day  as  I  was  looking  over  my 
mantelshelf  library,  it  suddenly  struck 
me  that  all  these  authors  of  mine  were 


3S8  A   TALK    ON    BOOKS. 

heretics  —  these  were  dangerous  books. 
Undesignedly  I  had  found  stimulus  and 
help  from  teachers  who  were  not  cred- 
ited by  orthodoxy.  And  I  have  since 
found  that  much  of  the  good  to  be  got 
from  books  is  to  be  gained  from  authors 
often  classed  as  dangerous,  for  these 
provoke  inquiry,  and  exercise  one's 
powers.  Towards  the  end  of  my  shelf 
I  had  one  or  two  humorous  works ;  chief 
amongst  them  all  being  Mark  Twain. 
His  humor  is  peculiar;  broad  exaggera- 
tion, a  sly  simplicity,  comical  situations, 
and  surprising  turns  of  expressions  ;  but 
to  me  it  has  been  a  genuine  fund  of 
humor.  The  humorous  side  of  a  stu- 
dent's nature  needs  to  be  considered, 
and  where  it  is  undeveloped,  it  should 


A    TALK    ON    BOOKS.  359 

be  cultivated.  I  have  known  many  in- 
stances of  good  students  who  seemed  to 
have  no  sense  of  humor. 

I  will  not  recommend  any  of  my  fav- 
orite books  to  another;  they  have  done 
me  good,  but  they  might  not  suit  another 
man.  Every  man  must  discover  his  own 
books ;  but  when  he  has  found  what  fits 
in  with  his  tastes,  what  stimulates  him 
to  thought,  what  supplies  a  want  in  his 
nature,  and  exalts  him  in  conception  and 
feelings,  that  is  the  book  for  the  student, 
be  what  it  may.  This  brings  me  to 
speak  of 

The  Friendship  of  Books. 

To  fall  in  love  with  a  good  book  is 
one  of    the   greatest   events   that    can 


360  A   TALK   ON    BOOKS. 

befall  us.  It  is  to  have  a  new  influence 
pouring  itself  into  our  life,  a  new  teach- 
er to  inspire  and  refine  us,  a  new  friend 
to  be  by  our  side  always,  who,  when  life 
grows  narrow  and  weary,  will  take  us 
into  his  wider  and  calmer  and  higher 
world.  Whether  it  be  biography  intro- 
ducing us  to  some  humble  life  made 
great  by  duty  done ;  or  history,  opening 
vistas  into  the  movements  and  destinies 
of  nations  that  have  passed  away;  or 
poetry  making  music  of  all  the  common 
things  around  us,  and  filling  the  fields, 
and  the  skies,  and  the  work  of  the  city 
and  the  cottage  with  eternal  meanings 
—  whether  it  be  these,  or  story  books,  or 
religious  books,  or  science,  no  one  can 
become  the   friend  even   of   one   good 


A    TALK    ON    BOOKS.  361 

book  without  being  made  wiser  and 
better.  Do  not  think  I  am  going  to 
recommend  any  such  book  to  you.  The 
beauty  of  a  friend  is  that  we  discover 
him.  And  we  must  each  taste  the 
books  that  are  accessible  to  us  for  our- 
selves. Do  not  be  disheartened  at  first 
if  you  like  none  of  them.  That  is  pos- 
sibly their  fault,  not  yours.  But  search 
and  search  till  you  find  what  you  like.  In 
amazingly  cheap  form — for  a  few  pence 
indeed — almost  all  the  best  books  are  now 
to  be  had ;  and  I  think  everyone  owes  it 
as  a  sacred  duty  to  his  viind  to  start  a 
little  library  of  his  own.  How  much  do 
we  not  do  for  our  bodies.^  How  much 
thought  and  money  do  they  not  cost  us.^ 
And  shall  we  not  think  a  little,  and  pay 


362  A    TALK    ON    BOOKS. 

a  little,  for  the  clothing  and  adorning  of 
the  imperishable  mind?  This  private 
library  may  begin,  perhaps,  with  a  single 
volume,  and  grow  at  the  rate  of  one  or 
two  a  year;  but  these  well-chosen  and 
well-mastered,  will  become  such  a  foun- 
tain of  strength  and  wisdom  that  each 
shall  be  eager  to  add  to  his  store.  A 
dozen  books  accumulated  in  this  way 
may  be  better  than  a  whole  library.  Do 
not  be  distressed  if  you  do  not  like 
time-honored  books,  or  classical  works, 
or  recommended  books.  Choose  for 
yourself;  trust  yourself;  plant  yourself 
on  your  own  instincts ;  that  which  is 
natural  for  us,  that  which  nourishes  us, 
and  gives  us  appetite,  is  that  which  is 
right   for   us.      We   have   all   different 


A    TALK    ON    BOOKS.  363 

minds,  and  we  are  all  at  different  stages 
of  growth.  Some  other  day  we  may 
find  food  in  the  recommended  book, 
though  we  should  possibly  starve  on 
it  to-day.  The  mind  develops  and 
changes,  and  the  favorites  of  this  year, 
also,  may  one  day  cease  to  interest  us. 
Nothing  better  indeed  can  happen  to  us 
than  to  lose  interest  in  a  book  we  have 
often  read;  for  it  means  that  it  has  done 
its  work  upon  us,  and  brought  us  up  to 
its  level,  and  taught  us  all  it  had  to 
teach. 


HENRY   ALTEMUS'    PUBLICATIONS. 

PHILADELPHIA.  PA. 


STEPHEN.  A  SOLDIER  OF  THE  CROSS,  by  Florence 
Morse  Kingsley,  author  of  "  Titus,  a  Comrade  of  the 
Cross."  "  bince  Ben-Hur  no  story  has  so  vividly  por- 
trayed the  times  of  Christ."— 77tt'  BookselUr.  Cloth, 
i2mo.,  369  pages.     ^1.25. 

PAUL.  A  HERALD  OF  THE  CROSS,  by  Florence 
Morse  Kingsley.  "A  vivid  and  picturesque  narrative  of 
the  life  and  times  of  the  great  Apostle.'  Cloth,  orna- 
mental, i2mo.,  450  pages,  ;Ji.5o 

VIC.  THE  AUTOBIOGRAPHY  OF  A  FOX  TER- 
RIER,  by  Marie  More  Marsh.  *'A  fitting  companion 
to  that  other  wonderful  book,  '  Black.  Beauty.'  "  Cloth, 
i2mo.,  50  cents. 

WOMAN'S  WORK  IN  THE  HOME,  by  Archdeacon 
Farrar.     Cloth,  small  i8mo.,  50  cents. 

THE  APOCRYPHAL  BOOKS  OF  THE  NEW  TESTA- 
MENT, being  the  gospels  and  epistles  used  by  the  fol- 
lowers of  Christ  in  the  first  three  centuries  after  his 
death,  and  rejected  by  the  Council  of  Nice,  A.  D.  325. 
Cloth,  8vo.,  illustrated,  ;i^2.oo. 

THE  PILGRIM'S  PROGRESS,  as  John  Bunvan  ivrote 
it.  A  fac-simile  reproduction  of  the  first  edition,  pub- 
lished in  1678.     Antique  cloth,  i2mo.,  $1.^5. 

THE  FAIREST  OF  THE  FAIR,  by  Hildegarde  Haw- 
thorne. "  The  grand-daughter  of  Nathaniel  Hawthorne 
possesses  a  full  share  of  his  wonderful  genius."  Cloth, 
i6mo.,  ^1.25 

A  LOVER  IN  HOMESPUN,  by  F.  Clifford  Smith. 
Interesting  tales  of  adventure  and  home  life  in  Canada. 
Cloth.  i2mo.,  75  cents. 

ANNIE  BESANT:  AN  AUTOBIOGRAPHY.  Cloth, 
i2mo.,  368  pages,  illustrated.     ;^2.oo 

THE  GRAMMAR  OF  PALMISTRY,  by  Katharine  St. 
Hill.     Cloth,  i2mo.,  illustrated,  75  cents. 

AROUND   THE  WORLD   IN    EIGHTY   MINUTES. 

Contains  over  100  photographs  of  the  most  famous 
places  and  edifices  with  descriptive  text.  Cloth,  50 
cents. 

WHAT  WOMEN  SHOULD  KNOW.  A  woman's  book 
about  women.  By  Mrs.  E.  B.  Duffy.  Cloth,  320 
pages,  75  cents. 


HENRY  ALTEMUS'  PUBLICATIONS. 


THE  CARE  OF  CHILDREN,  by  Elisabeth  R.  Scovil. 
"  An  excellent  book  of  the  most  vital  interest."  Cloth, 
i2mo.,  ^i.oo. 

PREPARATION  FOR  MOTHERHOOD,  by  Elisabeth 
R.  Scovil.    Cloth,  i2mo.,  320  pages,  ;^i.oo. 

ALTEMUS'  CONVERSATION  DICTIONARIES.  En?- 
lish-German,  English-French,  "  Combined  dictionaries 
and  phrase  books."     Pocket  size,  each  ^i.oo. 

TAINE'S  ENGLISH  LITERATURE,  translated  from 
the  French  by  Henry  Van  Laun,  illustrated  with  20 
fine  photogravure  portraits.  Best  English  library 
edition,  four  volumes,  cloth,  full  gilt,  octavo,  per  set, 
$10.00.  Half  calf,  per  set,  $12.50.  Cheaper  edition, 
with  frontispiece  illustrations  only,  cloih,  paper  titles, 
per  set  $7.50. 

SHAKESPEARE'S  COMPLETE  WORKS,  with  a  bio- 
graphical sketch  by  Mary  Cowden  Clark,  embellished 
with  64  Boydell,and  numerous  other  illustrations,  four 
volumes,  over  2000  pages.  Half  Morocco,  izmo., 
boxed,  per  set,  $3.00. 


DORE'S  MASTERPIECES 


THE  DORE  BIBLE  GALLERY.  A  complete  panorama 
of  Bible  History,  containing  100  full-page  engravings 
by  Gustave  Dore. 

MILTON'S  PARADISE  LOST,  with  50  full  page  engrav- 
ings  by  Custave  Dore. 

DANTE'S  INFERNO,  with  75  hill  page  engravings  by  Gus- 
tave Dore. 

DANTE'S  PURGATORY  AND  PARADISE,  with  60 
full  page  engravings  by  Gustave  Dore. 

Cloth,  ornamental,  large  quarto  (9  x  12  inches),  each  $2.00. 


TENNYSON'S  IDYLLS  OF  THE  KING,  with  37full page 

engravings   by  Gustave   Dore.     Cloth,  full  gilt,  large 
imperial  quarto  (11  x  14^  inches),  $4.50. 


HENRY  ALTEMUS'  PUBLICATIONS, 


:i-. 


THE  RIME  OF  THE  ANCIENT  MARINER,  by  Sam- 
uel  Taylor  Coleridge,  with  46  full  paj^e  engravings  by 
Gustave  Dore,  Cloth,  full  gilt,  large  imperial  quarto 
(11  X  14 J4  inches),  ^^3.00. 

BUNYAN'S  PILGRIM'S  PROGRESS,  with  100  engrav- 

infes   by  Frederick    IJarn.ird    and  oth«.rs.    Cloth,  small 
quarto  (9  x  10  inches j,  ^i.oo. 

DICKENS'     CHILD'S     HISTORY    OF    ENGLAND, 

with    75   tine  engravings   by  famous  artists.       Cloth, 
small  quarto,  boxed  (9  x  10  inches),  ;^i.oo. 

BIBLE  PICTURES  AND  STORIES,  loc  full  page  engrav- 
ings.    Cloth,  small  quarto  (7x9  inches),  ;^i.oo. 

MY  ODD  LITTLE  FOLK,  some  rhymes  and  verses 
about  them,  by  Malcolm  Douglass.  Numerous  original 
engravings.     Cloth,  small  quarto  (7x9),  j^i.oo. 

PAUL  AND  VIRGINIA,  by  Bemardin  St.  Pierre,  with  125 
engravings  by  Maurice  Leloir,  Cloth,  small  quarto 
(gx  io),;^i.oo. 

LIFE  AND  ADVENTURES  OF  ROBINSON  CRU- 
SOE, with  120  original  engravings  by  Wa.ter  Paget. 
Cloth,  octavo  {7%  x.gyi),  $1.50. 


ALTEMUS'  ILLUSTRATED  LIBRARY  OF 
STANDARD  AUTHORS. 

Cloth,  Twelve  Mo.  Size,  5]/^  x  ■]%  Inches.     Each  ^1,00. 


TALES  FROM  SHAKESPEARE,  by  Charles  and  Mary 

Lamb,  with  155  illustrations  by  famows  artists. 
PAUL  AND  VIRGINIA,  by  Bemardin  de  St.  Pierre,  with 

125  engravings  by  Alaurice  Leloir. 
ALICE'S  ADVENTURES  IN  WONDERLAND,  AND 

THROUGH     THE     LOOKING  GLASS     AND 

WHAT    ALICE    FOUND    THERE,    by    Lewis 

Carroll.     Complete  in  one  volume  with  92  engravings 

by  John  Tenniel. 
LUCILE,  by  Owen  Meredith,  with  numerous  illustrations  by 

George  J  >u  Maurier. 
BLACK  BEAUTY,  by  Anna  Sewell,  with  nearly  50  original 

engravings. 
SCARLET  LETTER,  by  Nathaniel  Hawthorne,  with  numer- 
ous original  fuil-page  and  le.xt  illustrations. 
THE  HOUSE  OF  THE  SEVEN  GABLES,  by  Nathaniel 

Hawthorne,  with  numerous  original  lul.-page  and  text 

illustrations. 
BATTLES  OF  THE  WAR   FOR  INDEPENDENCE, 

by  Prescott  Holmes,  with  7  .  illustration.s 
BATTLES   OF   THE  W^AR    FOR   THE   UNION,  by 

Prescott  Holmes,  with  80  illustrations. 


/ 


HENRY  ALTEMUS'  PUBLICATIONS. 


ALTEMUS    V'OUNG  PEOPLES'  LIBRARY 

PRICE  FIFTY  CENTS  EACH. 


ROBINSON  CRUSOE  :  (Chiefly  in  words  of  one  syllable). 
His  life  and  strange,  surprising  adventures,  with  70 
beautiful  illustrations  by  Walter  Paget. 

ALICE'S  ADVENTURES  IN  WONDERLAND,  with 
42  illustrations  by  John  Tenniel.  "  The  most  delightful 
of  children's  stories.  Elegant  and  delicious  nonsense." 
— Saturday  Review. 

THROUGH  THE  LOOKING-GLASS  AND  WHAT 
ALICE  FOUND  THERE;  a  companion  to  "  Alice 
in  Wonderland,"  with  50  illustrations  by  John  Tenniel. 

BUNYAN'S  PILGRIM'S  PROGRESS,  with  50  full  page 
and  text  illustrations. 

A  CHILD'S  STORY  OF  THE  BIBLE,  with  72  full  page 
illustrations, 

A  CHILD'S  LIFE  OF  CHRIST,  with  49  illustrations. 
God  has  implanted  in  the  infant  heart  a  desire  to  hear 
of  Jesus,  and  children  are  early  attracted  and  sweetly 
riveted  by  the  wonderful  Story  of  the  Master  from  the 
Manger  to  the  Throne. 

SWISS  FAMILY  ROBINSON,  with  50  illustrations.  The 
father  of  the  family  tells  the  tale  of  the  vicissitudes 
through  which  he  and  his  wife  and  children  pass,  the 
wonderful  discoveries  made  and  dangers  encountered. 
The  book  is  full  of  interest  and  instruction, 

CHRISTOPHER  COLUMBUS  AND  THE  DISCOV- 
ERY OF  AMERICA,  with  70  illustrations.  Every 
American  boy  and  girl  should  be  acquainted  v/ith  the 
story  of  the  life  of  the  great  discoverer,  with  its  strug- 
gles, adventures, and  trials. 

THE  STORY  OF  EXPLORATION  AND  DISCOVERY 
IN  AFRICA,  with  80  illustrations.  Records  the  ex- 
periences of  adventures  and  discoveries  in  developing 
the  "  Dark  Continent,"  from  the  early  days  of  Bruce 
and  Mungo  Park  down  to  Livingstone  and  Stanley, 
and  the  h'.roes  of  cur  own  time-;.  No  preseni  can  be 
more  acceptable  than  such  a  volume  as  thi-,  where 
courage,  intrepidity,  re.source,  and  devotion  ure  so 
admirauiy  mingled. 


HENRY  ALTEMUS'  PUBLICATIONS. 


Altemus'  Young  Peoples'  Library— continued. 


THE  FABLES  OF  /ESOP.  Compiled  from  th*  best 
accepted  sources.  With  62  illustrations.  I'he  fables  of 
i^j^sop  are  among  the  very  earliest  compositions  of  this 
kind,  and  probably  have  never  been  surpassed  fur  point 
and  brevity. 

GULLIVER'S  TRAVELS.  Adapted  for  young  readers. 
With  50  illustrations. 

MOTHER  GOOSE'S  RHYMES,  JINGLES  AND 
FAIRY  TALES,  with  234  illustrations. 

LIVES  OF  THE  PRESIDENTS  OF  THE  UNITED 
STATES,  by  Prescott  Holmes.  With  portraits  of 
the  Presidents  and  also  of  the  unsuccessful  candidates 
for  the  office  ;  as  well  as  the  ablest  of  the  Cabinet  offi- 
cers. It  is  just  the  book  for  intelligent  boys,  and  it 
will  help  to  make  them  intelligent  and  patriotic  citizens. 

THE  STORY  OF  ADVENTURE  IN  THE  FROZEN 

SEAS,  with  70  illustrations.  By  Prescott  Holmes. 
We  have  here  brought  together  the  records  of  the 
attempts  to  reach  the  North  Pole.  The  book  shows 
how  much  can  be  accomplished  by  steady  perseverance 
and  indomitable  pluck. 

ILLUSTRATED  NATURAL  HISTORY,  by  the  Rev   J. 

G.  Wood,  with  8j  illustrations.  This  author  has  done 
more  to  popularize  the  study  of  natural  history  than 
anv  other  writer.  The  illustrations  are  striking  and 
life-like. 

A  CHILD'S  HISTORY  OF  ENGLAND,  by  Charles 
Dickens,  with  50  illustrations.  'I'ired  of  listening  to 
his  children  memorize  the  twaddle  of  old  fashioned 
English  history  the  author  covere  1  the  ground  in  his 
own  peculiar  and  happy  style  for  his  own  children's 
use.  When  the  work  was  published  its  success  was 
instantaneous. 

BLACK  BEAUTY,  THE  AUTOBIOGRAPHY  OF  A 
HORSE,  by  Anna  Sewell,  with  50  illustrations.  A 
work  sure  to  educate  boys  and  girls  to  treat  with  kind- 
ness all  members  of  the  animal  kingdom.  Recognized 
as  the  greatest  story  of  animal  life  extant. 

THE     ARABIAN     NIGHTS     ENTERTAINMENTS, 

with  130  illustrations.  Contains  the  most  favorably 
known  of  the  stories. 


HENRY  ALTEMUS'  PUBLICATIONS. 


ALTEMUS'  DEVOTIONAL  SERIES. 


Standard  Religious  lyiterature  Appropriately  Bound  in 

Handy  Volume  Size.     iEach  Volume  contains 

Illuminated  Title,  Portrait  of  Author 

and  Appropriate  Illustrations. 


WHITE  VELLUM,  SILVER  AND  MONOTINT, 
BOXED,  EACH  FIFTY  CENTS. 


1  KEPT  FOR  THE  MASTER'S  USE,  by  Frances  Ridley 
Havergal.     "  Will  perpetuate  her  name." 

2  MY    KING    AND     HIS    SERVICE,    OR    DAILY 

THOUGHTS  FOR  THE  KING'S  CHILDREN, 

by  F>ances  Ridley  Havergal.  "  Simple,  tender,  gentle, 
and  full  of  Christian  love." 

3  MY  POINT  OF  VIEW.     Selections  from  the  works  of 

Professor  Henry  Drummond. 

4  OF  THE    IMITATION    OF  CHRIST,   by   Thomas 

AKempis.  "  With  the  exception  of  the  Bible  it  is 
probably  the  book  most  read  in  Christian  literature." 

•    5     ADDRESSES,  by  Professor  Henry  Drummond.    "  Intel- 
ligent sympathy  with  the  Christian's  need." 

6  NATURAL  LAW  IN  THE  SPIRITUAL  WORLD, 

by  Professor  Henry  Drummond.  "  A  most  notable 
book  which  has  earned  for  the  author  a  world-wide 
reputation." 

7  ADDRESSES,   by  the    Rev.    PhilHps   Brooks.      "Has 

exerted  a  marked  influence  over  the  rising  generation." 

8  ABIDE  IN  CHRIST.    Thoughts  on  the  Blessed  Life  of 

Fellowship  with  the  Son  of  God.  By  the  Rev.  Andrew 
Murray.       It   cannot    fail    to  stimulate  and  cheer. — 

9  LIKE  CHRIST.     Thoughts  on  the  Blessed  Life  of  Con- 

formity to  the  Son  of  God.  By  the  Rev.  Andrew 
Murray.  A  sequel  to  "  Abide  in  Christ."  "May  be 
read  with  comfort  and  edification  by  all." 

ID    WITH  CHRIST  IN  THE  SCHOOL  OF  PRAYER» 

by  the  Rev  Andrew  Murray.  *'  The  best  work  on 
prayer  in  the  language." 


HENRY  ALTEMUS'   PUBLICATIONS. 

XX  HOLY  IN  CHRIST.  ThouKhts  on  the  Calling  of  God's 
Children  to  be  Holy  as  He  is  Holy.  I^y  the  Rev. 
Andrew  Murray.  "  This  sacred  theme  istieated  Scrip- 
turally  and  robustly  without  spurious  sentimentalism." 

12  THE  MANLINESS  OF  CHRIST,  by  Thomas  Hughes, 
author  of  "Tom  Brown's  School  Days,"  etc.  "Evi- 
dences of  the  sublimest  courage  and  manliness  in 
the  boyhood,  ministry,  and  in  the  last  acts  of  Christ's 
life." 

X3  ADDRESSES  TO  YOUNG  MEN,  by  the  Rev.  Henry 
Ward  Heecher.  Seven  Addresses  on  common  vices  and 
their  results. 

14  THE  PATHWAY  OF  SAFETY,  by  the  Rt.  Rev.  Ash- 

ton  O.xenden,  D.D.  Sound  words  of  advice  and  encour- 
agement on  the  text  **  What  must  I  do  to  be  saved?" 

15  THE  CHRISTIAN   LIFE,  by  the  Rt.    Rev.   Ashton 

Oxenden,  D.  D.  A  beautiful  delineation  of  an  ideal  life 
from  the  conversion  to  the  final  reward. 

16  THE  THRONE  OF  GRACE.     Before  which  the  bur- 

dened soul  may  cast  itself  on  the  bosom  of  infinite  love 
and  enjoy  in  prayer"  a  peace  which  passeth  all  under- 
standing." 

17  THE   PATHWAY  OF   PROMISE,  by  the  author  of 

"The  Throne  of  Grace."  Thoughts  consolatory  and 
encouraging  to  the  Christian  pilgrim  as  he  journeys 
onward  to  his  heavenly  home. 

18  THE  IMPREGNABLE  ROCK  OF  HOLY  SCRIP- 

TURE, by  the  Rt.  Hon.  William  Ewart  Gladstone, 
M,  P.  The  most  masterly  defence  of  the  truths  of  the 
Bible  extant.  The  author  says  :  The  Christian  Faith 
and  the  Holy  Scriptures  arm  us  with  the  means  of  neu- 
tralizing and  repelling  the  assaults  of  evil  in  and  from 
ourselves. 

19  STEPS  INTO  THE  BLESSED  LIFE,  by  the  Rev.  F. 

B.  Meyer,  B.  A.  A  powerful  help  towards  sanctifica- 
tion. 

ao  THE  MESSAGE  OF  PEACE,  by  the  Rev.  Richard  W. 
Church,  D.  D.  Eight  excellent  sermons  on  the  advent 
of  the  Babe  of  Bethlehem  and  his  influence  and  effect 
on  the  world. 

21  JOHN  PLOUGHMAN'S  TALK,  by  the  Rev.  Charles 

H.  Spurgeon. 

22  JOHN    PLOUGHMAN'S    PICTURES,  by  the   Rev. 

Charles  H.  Spurgeon. 

23  THE    CHANGED    CROSS;     AND     OTHER    RE- 

LIGIOUS POEMS. 


ALTEMUS'  ETERNAL    LIFE   SERIES. 


Selections    from    the    writings    of   well-known    religious 

authors,  beautifully  printed  and  daintily  bound 

with  original  designs  in  silver  and  ink. 


PRICE,  25  CENTS  PER  VOLUME. 


1  ETERNAL    LIFE,  by  Professor  Henry  Drummond. 

2  LORD,  TEACH  US  TO  PRAY,  by  Rev.  Andrew  Murray. 

3  GOD'S  WORD  AND  GOD'S  WORK,  by  Martin  Luther. 

4  FAITH,  by  Thomas  Arnold. 

5  THE    CREATION    STORY,    by    Honorable    William    E. 

Gladstone. 

6  THE    MESSAGE   OF   COMFORT,   by  Rt.  Rev.  Ashton 

Oxenden. 

7  THE  MESSAGE  OF  PEACE,  by  Rev   R.  W.  Church. 

8  THE    LORD'S     PRAYER    AND    THE    TEN     COM- 

MANDMENTS,  by  LVan  Stanley. 

9  THE  MEMOIRS  OF  JESUS,  by  Rev.  Robert  F.  Horton. 

10  HYMNS  OF  PRAISE  AND  GLADNESS,  by  Elisabeth 

R.  Scovil. 

11  DIFFICULTIES,  by  Hannah  Whitall  Smith. 

12  GAMBLERS  AND    GAMBLING,  by  Rev.  Henry  Ward 

Beecher. 

13  HAVE  FAITH  IN  GOD,  by  Rev.  Andrew  Murray. 

14  TWELVE  CAUSES  OF  DISHONESTY,  by  Rev.  Henry 

Ward  Beecher. 

15  THE  CHRIST  IN  WHOM  CHRISTIANS  BELIEVE, 

by  Rt.  Rev.  Phillips  Brooks. 
i6     IN  MY  NAME,  >  y  Rev.  Andrew  Murray. 
17     SIX  WARNINGS,  by  Rev.  Henry  Ward  Beecher. 
i8    THE  DUTY  OF  THE  CHRISTIAN  BUSINESSMAN, 

by  Rt.  Rev.  Phillips  Brooks. 
ig     POPULAR     AMUSEMENTS,    by    Rev.     Henry     Ward 

Beecher. 

20  TRUE  LIBERTY,  by  Rt.  Rev   Phillips  Brooks. 

21  INDUSTRY    AND    IDLENESS,  by   Rev.   Henry  Ward 

Beecher. 

22  THE    BEAUTY    OF   A   LIFE  OF   SERVICE,   by  Rt. 

Rev.  Phillip';  Brooks. 

23  THE  SECOND  COMING  OF  OUR  LORD,  by  Rev.  A. 

T.  Pierson,  D    D. 

24  THOUGHT  AND  ACTION,  by  Rt.  Rev.  Phillips.  Brooks. 

25  THE  HEAVENLY  VISION,  by  Rev.  F.  B.  Meyer. 

26  MORNING   STRENGTH,  by  Elisabeth  R.  Scovil. 

27  FOR  THE  QUIET  HOUR,  by  Edith  V.  Bradt. 

28  EVENING   COMFORT,  by  Elisabeth  R.  Scovil 

29  WORDS    OF   HELP    FOR   CHRISTIAN   GIRLS,   by 

Rev.  F    B.  Meyer. 

30  HO'W   TO    STUDY   THE   BIBLE,  by   Rev.    Dwight   L. 

Moody 

31  EXPECTATION  CORNER,  by  E.  S.  Elliot. 

32  JESSICA'S  FIRST  PRAYER,  by  Hesba  Stratton. 


ALTEMUS'  BELLES-LETTRES  SERIES. 


A    collection   of   Essays    and    Addresses    by  eminent 

English  and  American  Authors,  beautifully 

primed  and   daintily  bo\md,  with 

original  designs  in  silver. 


PRICE,  25  CENTS  PER  VOLUME. 


1     INDEPENDENCE  DAY,  by  Rev.  Edward  E.  Hale, 

3     THE  SCHOLAR  IN  POLITICS,  by  Hon.  Richard  Olney. 

3  THE  YOUNG  MAN  IN  BUSINESS,  by  Edward  W.  Bok. 

4  THE  YOUNG  MAN  AND  THE  CHURCH,  by  Edward 

W.  Bok. 

5  THE  SPOILS  SYSTEM,  by  Hon.  Carl  Schurz. 

6  CONVERSATION,  by  Thomas  DeQuincey. 

7  SWEETNESS  AND  LIGHT,  by  Matthew  Arnold. 

8  WORK,  by  John  Ruskin. 

9  NATURE  AND  ART,  by  Ralph  Waldo  Emerson. 

10  THE    USE    AND    MISUSE    OF    BOOKS,   by   Frederic 

Harrison. 

11  THE  MONROE  DOCTRINE:   ITS  ORIGIN,  MEAN- 

ING   AND     APPLICATION,    by    Prof.    John    Bach 
McMaster  (University  of  Pennsylvania). 

12  THE  DESTINY  OF  MAN,  by  Sir  John  Lubbock. 

13  LOVE  AND  FRIENDSHIP,  by  Ralph  Waldo  Emerson. 

14  RIP  VAN  WINKLE,  by  Washington  Irving. 

15  ART,  POETRY  AND  MUSIC,  by  Sir  John  Lubbock. 

16  THE  CHOICE  OF  BOOKS,  by  Sir  John  Lubbock. 
J 7     MANNERS,  by  Ralph  Waldo  Emerson. 

18  CHARACTER,  by  Ralph  Waldo  Emerson. 

19  THE    LEGEND    OF    SLEEPY    HOLLOW,  by  Wash- 

ington Irving. 

20  THE  BEAUTIES  OF  NATURE,  by  Sir  John  Lubbock. 

21  SELF  RELIANCE,  by  Ralph  Waldo  Emerson. 

22  THE  DUTY  OF  HAPPINESS,  by  Sir  John  Lubbock. 
-.3     SPIRITUAL   LAWS,  by  Ralph  Waldo  Emerson. 

24  OLD  CHRISTMAS,  by  Washington  Irving 

25  HEALTH,    WEALTH    AND    THE    BLESSING    OF 

FRIENDS,  by  Sir  John  Lubbock. 
25     INTELLECT,  by  Ralph  Waldo  Emerson. 
i7    WHY    AMERICANS    DISLIKE    ENGLAND,  by  Prof. 

Geo    B   Adams  (Yale). 
c8    THE  HIGHER  EDUCATION  AS  A  TRAINING  FOR 

BUSINESS,   by   Prof   Harry  Pratt  Judson  (University 

of  Chicago). 

29  MISS  TOOSEY'S  MISSION. 

30  LADDIE. 

31  J.  COLE,  by  Emma  Gellibrand. 


HENRY  ALTEMUS'  PUBLICATIONS. 


ALTEMUS'    NEW    ILLUSTRATED 
VADEMECUM    SERIES. 


Masterpieces  of  English  and  American  I^iterature,  Handy 

Volume  Size,  Large  Type  Editions.    Each  Volume 

Contains  Illuminated  Title  Pages,  and  Portrait 

of  Author  and  Numerous  Engravings 


Full  Cloth,  ivory  finish,  oraamental  inlaid  sides  and  back, 
boxed 40 

Full  White  Vellum,  full  silver  and  monotint,  boxed  ....      50 


1  CRANFORD,  by  Mrs.  Gaskell. 

2  A  WINDOW  IN  THRUMS,  by  J.  M.  Barrie. 


3  RAB  AND  HIS   FRIENDS,  MARJORIE  FLEM- 

ING, ETC.,  by  John  Brown,  M.  D. 

4  THE  VICAR  OF  WAKEFIELD,  by  Oliver  Goldsmith. 


5  THE  IDLE  THOUGHTS  OF  AN  IDLE  FELLOW, 

by  Jerome  K.  Jerome.     "  A  book  for  an  idle  holiday." 

6  TALES  FROM  SHAKSPEARE,  by  Charles  and  Mary 

Lamb,  with  an  introduction  by  the  Rev,  Alfred  Aineer. 
M.  D.  ^    ' 

7  SESAME  AND  LILIES,  by  John  Ruskin. 

Three  Lectures — I.  Of  the  King's  Treasures.     II.  Of 
Queen's  Garden.     III.  Of  the  Mystery  of  Life. 

8  THE  ETHICS  OF  THE  DUST,by  John  Ruskin.    Ten 

lectures  to  little  housewives  on  the  elements  ot  crystali- 
zation. 

9  THE  PLEASURES  OF  LIFE,  by  Sir  John  Lubbock. 

Complete  in  one  volume. 

ID    THE  SCARLET  LETTER,  by  Nathaniel  Hawthorne. 

11  THE    HOUSE    OF   THE    SEVEN    GABLES,    by 

Nathaniel  Hawthorne. 

12  MOSSES  FROM  AN   OLD   MANSE,  by  Nathaniel 

Hawthorne. 


HENRY  ALTEMUS'  PUBLICATIONS.      "^ 


Altemus'   New  Illustrated  Vadcmecum  Series- 
continued. 


13    TWICE    TOLD    TALES,  by    Nathaniel    Hawthorne. 


14  THE    ESSAYS   OF    P'RANCIS    (LORD)    BACON 

WITH  MEMOIRS  AND  NOTES. 

15  ESSAYS,  First  Series,  by  Ralph  Waldo  Emerson. 
x6     ESSAYS,  Second  Series,  by  Ralph  Waldo  Emerson. 

17  REPRESENTATIVE  MEN,  by  R.ilph  Waldo  Emerson. 

Mental  portraits  each  representing  a  class.  i.  The 
Philosopher.  2.  The  Mystic..  3.  The  Skeptic.  4.  The 
Poet.     5.  The  Man  of  the  World.     6.  The  Writer. 

18  THOUGHTS  OF  THE  EMPEROR  MARCUS 

AURELIUS  ANTONINUS,  translated  by  George 
Long. 

19  THE  DISCOURSES  OF  EPICTETUS  WITH  THE 

ENCHIRIDION,  translated  by  George  Long. 


20  OF  THE  IMITATION  OF  CHRIST,  by  Thomas 
A^Kempis.     Four  books  complete  in  one  volume. 

ai  ADDRESSES,  by  Professor  Henry  Drummond.  The 
Greatest  Thing  in  the  World  ;  Pax  Vobiscum  ;  The 
Changed  Life;  How  to  Learn  How;  Dealing  With 
Doubt ;  Preparation  for  Learning ;  What  is  a  Chris- 
tian ;  The  Study  of  the  Bible  ;  A  Talk  on  Books. 

M    LETTERS,  SENTENCES  AND  MAXIMS,  by  Lord 

Chesterfield.     Masterpieces  of  good  taste,  good  writing 
and  good  sense. 

23  REVERIES    OF    A   BACHELOR.      A  book  of  the 

heart.     By  Ik  Marvel. 

24  DREAM  LIFE,  by  Ik  Marvel.    A  companion  to  "  Reve- 

ries  of  a  Bachelor." 

25  SARTOR  RESARTUS,  by  Thomas  Carlyle. 

26  HEROES  AND  HERO  WORSHIP,  by  Thomas  Car- 

lyle. 

27  UNCLE  TOM'S   CABIN,  by  Harriet   Beecher  Stowe. 

28  ESSAYS  OF  ELIA,  by  Charles  I^mb. 


HENRY  ALTEMUS'   PUBLICATIONS. 


Altemus'  New  Illustrated  Vademecum  Series- 
continued. 


39  MY  POINT  OF  VIEW.  Representative  selections  from 
the  works  of  Professor  Henry  Drunimond  by  William 
Shepard. 

30  THE  SKETCH  BOOK,  by  Washington  Irving.     Com- 

plete. 

31  KEPT    FOR    THE    MASTER'S    USE,    by    Frances 

Ridley  Havergal. 

32  LUCILE,  by  Owen  Meredith. 

33  LALLA  ROOKH,  by  Thomas  Moore. 

34  THE   LADY  OF  THE   LAKE,  by  Sir  Walter  Scott. 

35  MARMION,  by  Sir  Walter  Scott. 

36  THE   PRINCESS  ;    AND    MAUD,  by  Alfred   (Lord) 

Tennyson. 

37  CHILDE     HAROLD'S     PILGRIMAGE,    by     Lord 

Byron. 

38  IDYLLS  OF  THE  KING,  by  Alfred  (Lord)  Tennyson. 

39  EVANGELINE,  by  Henry  Wadsworth  Longfellow. 

40  VOICES  OF  THE  NIGHT  AND  OTHER  POEMS, 

by  Henr>'  V/adsworth  Longfellow. 

41  THE   QUEEN  OF  THE  AIR,  by  John  Ruskin.    A 

study  of  the  Greek  myths  of  cloud  and  storm. 

42  THE  BELFRY  OF  BRUGES  AND  OTHER 

POEMS,  by   Henry  Wadsworth  Longfellow. 

43  POEMS,  Volume  I,  by  John  Greenleaf  Whittier. 

44  POEMS,  Volume  II,  by  John  Greenleaf  Whittier. 


HENRY  ALTEMUS*  PUBLICATIONS.  ^ 

Altemus'  New  Illustrated  Vademecum  Series- 
continued. 


45  THE   RAVEN;  AND   OTHER   POEMS,  by   Edgar 

Allan  Poe. 

46  THANATOPSIS;AND  OTHER  POEMS,  by  William 

Culleu  Bryant. 

47  THE  LAST  LEAF;AND  OTHER  POEMS,  by  Oliver 

Wendell  Holmes. 

48  THE  HERpES  OR   GREEK   FAIRY   TALES,  by 

Charles  Kingsley. 

49  A  WONDER  BOOK,  by  Nathaniel  Hawthorne. 


50  UNDINE,  by  de  La  Motte  Fouque, 

51  ADDRESSES,  by  the  Rt.  Rev.  Phillips  Brooks. 

52  BALZAC'S    SHORTER    STORIES,    by   Honore    de 

Balzac. 

53  TWO  YEARS   BEFORE   THE  MAST,  by  Richard 

H.  Dana,  Jr. 

54  BENJAMIN  FRANKLIN.     An  Autobiography. 

55  THE  LAST   ESSAYS   OF   ELIA,  by  Charles  Lamb. 

56  TOM     BRO'WN'S     SCHOOL     DAYS,    by    Thomas 

Hughes. 

57  WEIRD  TALES,  by  Edgar  Allan  Poe. 

58  THE  CROWN  OF  WILD  OLIVE,  by  John  Ruskin. 

Three  lectures  on  Work,  Traffic  and  War. 

59  NATURAL  LAW^  IN  THE  SPIRITUAL  WORLD, 

by  Professor  Henry  Drummond. 

60  ABBE    CONSTANTIN,    by    Ludovic    Halevy. 

61  MANON  LESCAUT,  by  Abbe  Prevost. 


7 

/    HENRY  ALTEMUS'  PUBLICATIONS. 


Altemus'  New  Illustrated  Vademecum  Series — 
continued. 


62  THE  ROMANCE  OF  A  POOR  YOUNG  MAN,  by 

Octave  Feuillet. 

63  BLACK  BEAUTY,  by  Anna  Sewell. 

64  CAMILLE,  by  Alexander  Dumas,  Jr. 

65  THE  LIGHT  OF  ASIA,  by  Sir  Edwin  Arnold. 

56    THE    LAYS    OF    ANCIENT    ROME,  by    Thomas 
Babington  Macaulay. 

67  THE  CONFESSIONS  OF  AN  ENGLISH  OPIUM- 

EATER,  by  Thomas  De  Quincey. 

68  TREASURE  ISLAND,  by  Robert  L.  Stevenson. 

6g     CARMEN,  by  Prosper  Merimee. 

70  A  SENTIMENTAL  JOURNEY,  by  Laurence  Sterne. 

71  THE    BLITHEDALE    ROMANCE,    by    Nathaniel 

Hawthorne. 

72  BAB  BALLADS,  AND  SAVOY  SONGS,  by  W.  H. 

Gilbert. 

73  FANCHON,  THE  CRICKET,  by  George  Sand. 

74  POEMS,  by  James  Russell  Lowell. 

75  JOHN  PLOUGHMAN'S  TALK,  by  the  Rev.  Charles 

H.  Spurgeon, 

76  JOHN    PLOUGHMAN'S   PICTURES,  by  the   Rev. 

Charles  H.  Spurgeon. 

77  THE     MANLINESS     OF     CHRIST,    by    Thomas 

Hughes. 

78  ADDRESSES  TO  YOUNG  MEN,  by  the  Rev.  Henry 

Ward  Beecher. 

79  THE      AUTOCRAT      OF     THE      BREAKFAST 

TABLE,   by   OUver  Wendell   Holmes. 


HENRY  ALTEMUS'  PUBLICATIONS. 


Altemus'  New  Illustrated  Vademecum  Series — 
continued. 


80  MULVANEY  STORIES,  by  Rudyard  Kipling. 

81  BALLADS,  by  Rudyard  Kipling. 

8a  MORNING  THOUGHTS,  by  Frances  Ridley  Havergal. 

83  TEN  NIGHTS  IN  A  BAR  ROOM,  by  T.  S.  Arthur. 

84  EVENING  THOUGHTS,  by  Frances  Ridley  Qavergal. 

85  IN  MEMORIAM,  by  Alfred  (Lord)  Tennyson. 

86  COMING  TO  CHRIST,  by  Frances  Ridley  Haverga'!. 

87  HOUSE  OF  THE  WOLF,  by  Stanley  Weyman. 


AMERICAN  POLITICS  (non-Partisan),  by  Hon.  Thomas 
V.  Cooper,  A  history-  of  all  the  Political  Parties  with  their 
views  and  records  on  all  important  questions.  All  political 
platforms  from  the  beginning  to  date.  Great  Speeches  or> 
Great  issues.  Parliamentary  Practice  and  tabulated  history 
of  chronological  events.  A  library  without  this  work  is  de- 
ficient. 8vo.,  750  pages.  Cloth,  $3.00.  Full  Sheep  Library 
style,  $4  00. 

NAMES  FOR  CHILDREN,  by  Elisabeth  Robinson  Scovil, 
author  of  "  The  Care  of  Children,"  "  Preparation  for 
Motherhood."  In  family  life  there  is  no  question  of  greater 
weight  or  importance  than  naming  the  baby.  The  author 
gives  much  good  advice  and  many  suggestions  on  the  sub- 
ject.   Cloth,  i2mo.,  $  .40. 

TRIE  AND  TRIXY,byJohn  Habberton,  author  of  "Helen's 
Babies."  The  story  is  replete  with  vivid  and  spirited 
scenes;  and  is  incomparably  the  happiest  and  most  de- 
lightful work  Mr.  Habberton  has  yet  written.  Cloth, 
i2mo.,  $  .35. 


14  DAY  USE 

RETURN  TO  DESK  FROM  WHICH  BORROWED 

LOAN  DEPT. 

This  book  is  due  on  the  last  date  stamped  below,  or 
i  on  the  date  to  which  renewed. 

"^  I       Renewed  books  are  subject  to  immediate  recall. 


;*- 


LIBRARY  USE 


NOV  71960 


REC'D  LD 


WOV 14  160 


LIBRARY  USB 


NOV    81960 


_«|fHj — JUL  ?.?.VBi 


|t!>fc'<5«v3  ij^ 


8  i9ou 


LIBRARY  USE 


SiTERLIBRARY  LOAN 


NOV  10 1960 

UBRARY  USE 


tH 


JN  1  "  1985 


a 


^'V.  OF  CALIF-  BERK. 


—  NQViii9bU 


YA  02859 


'^m 


